


something borrowed, something blue

by CobaltKicks



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Humor, Idiots in Love, Multi, Mutual Pining, Student Activism, the gay melodrama of university students
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24020545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CobaltKicks/pseuds/CobaltKicks
Summary: “Enjolras,” he says. “I’m dying. I want you to know that. You are killing me.”“Yes,” Enjolras replies drily. “So you tell me every week.”“It’s a death by a thousand cuts,” Grantaire whines through his hands. “But to answer your question, no, it’s not entirely beyond me to convincingly pretend to be in love with you.”(Les Amis hatch a scheme to get Enjolras permanent residency in France. Grantaire hopes and prays that his sanity is not amongst the collateral damage.)
Relationships: Combeferre/Courfeyrac (Les Misérables), Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy, Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Grantaire & Joly & Bossuet Laigle & Musichetta, Joly/Bossuet Laigle/Musichetta
Comments: 58
Kudos: 173





	1. i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: discussion of arrests, discussion of trouble with immigration law, mentions of previous substance abuse.

_THE PRESENT DAY_

_Sweet Jesus,_ Grantaire thinks in absolute horror when he realises that every terrible decision he’d made to land him right here, up to his ankles in mud and in very real danger of contracting hypothermia, had been made entirely sober. _What the hell,_ how?

_That can’t be right._

A pair of headlights flash through the November downpour, and all thoughts are chased from his head by instantaneous panic.

(He’s isn’t, however, wrong).

_23_ _RD FEBRUARY 2018, PARIS_

The Inquisition begins thus.

“R, you’re a French citizen, right?” Courfeyrac hollers across the _Musain_ backroom.

Grantaire, who is currently engaged in trying to prevent Joly from forcing him to eat a granola bar, does not respond immediately. “What?” he yells back, slapping Joly’s hand away. He’s in the doorway, back to the doorframe, trying to turn Joly’s face away from him with the heel of his palm.

“I’m sorry for trying to save your fucking life,” Joly says, muffled by Grantaire’s fingers. At which, frankly, Grantaire takes affront. He _eats._

“You’re a French citizen, yeah?” Courfeyrac repeats.

“Sure, why?” In replying, Grantaire makes the fatal mistake of opening his mouth, and immediately receives a disgusting mouthful of oats and sunflower seeds as a result. He just keeps from spluttering and instead bestows Joly with a glare full of his manly indignation. Joly, a lowlife with no principles, puts the rest of the bar into Grantaire’s coat pocket and flips him off.

Grantaire looks up. Courfeyrac is sitting at the little round window table in conference with Combeferre, who looks pensive, and Enjolras, who regards him with a badly attempted stoicism.

“You know what? Never mind,” Grantaire amends as he realises it’s fairly likely he’s about to be drawn into some immigration debate as Courfeyrac’s example _citizen_. He makes his exit with appropriate haste.

A week later, he wakes to a message from Courfeyrac asking to see a picture of his _passport._

“What,” he says, and goes to shower.

It does not make any more sense when he returns from his shower, although there are two accompanying messages.

  * _Never fear, definitely for illegal shit_
  * _But not necessarily immoral_



“The fuck,” he completes. _I hope you can afford bail,_ he responds, and goes to find his passport.

_18 TH MARCH 2018, PARIS_

The _Musain_ is particularly stuffy this evening, and after losing three arm-wrestles in a row to Bahorel in the break, Grantaire ducks out to get some air.

On the balcony, the breeze clears Grantaire’s antsy-ness with a single gust. The bitter taste at the back of his mouth that has accompanied the past few months of Les Amis meetings dissipates. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, tasting the city - exhaust fumes, sharp North wind, the lingering dusky mist of the Seine. 

When he opens them, he sees he’s not alone. On the other side of the doors stands Enjolras, absorbed in his phone. Grantaire observes him in quiet devotion for the full second he can allow himself. The brilliant white light of Enjolras’ phone screen glows on his profile, turned away from Grantaire. A beat passes, and Enjolras hasn’t noticed him. 

This has gone on too long. Grantaire needs to say something, or it’ll be awkward. Another beat. 

“Hey,” Grantaire squeezes out. 

Enjolras looks up. Grantaire almost wants to step back, there’s something so wrong with Enjolras. Enjolras takes a long moment to answer, and Grantaire realises what it is. His eyes red, lower lip soft - he’s been crying. 

Grantaire freezes, cigarette is one hand, lighter in the other, like a terrible caricature of a Parisian. 

“R,” says Enjolras softly. His voice is a wet, velvet thing, 

“Oh, boss…” Grantaire has no idea what to do. This is like being handed a stick of lit dynamite by a stranger who then walked away into the crowd. “Are you ok?” He asks before he can stop himself. 

Enjolras’s mouth does some kind of twist. “Uh, no. But it’s...” _fine_ is probably what a less heroically truthful person would say. Enjolras shrugs instead of telling a little white lie. 

“Do you, uh, want me to get someone?” Grantaire gestures to the room inside. “Courfeyrac?” 

“It’s okay,” Enjolras shakes his head, “I just got some bad news.”

“Oh, uhm.”

Goddamn, he is _bad_ at this, Grantaire thinks, struggling to remember any single helpful thing someone has said to him when he’s been upset. What would Musichetta say right now? He pulls up a blank. He would have thought that after two years of clinging to the _Musain_ back room more stubbornly than the mould that grows on the sideboard, he would have picked up something about how to be good at friendship.

“Do you want a smoke?” is what he manages.

Enjolras takes a last glance at his phone, then slides it into his coat pocket. Is he going to give Grantaire all his attention? This never happens. The dynamite stick is burning lower.

Grantaire holds out his rolled cigarette. Enjolras takes it, holding it in one hand whilst he pats down his stupid extra-slim chino pockets with the other.

“Here,” Grantaire says, before he can stop himself, leaning across with his lighter. Enjolras puts the cigarette between his lips, bows his head and for a glorious second is lit up like a metallic leaf illuminated manuscript by the flame, his face all valleys of shadow and planes of gold.

Up close, Grantaire can see that his lips are slightly chapped, which is a weird thing to notice. His hand around the lighter doesn’t touch Enjolras’ cupped palm, but it’s a close thing.

“Thanks,” Enjolras mumbles around the cigarette. Grantaire bobs his head, not trusting his voice, pulling out his tobacco and balancing a new paper and filter on his stained fingertips.

Enjolras inhales deeply, his breath ending in a little tremble. He fishes what Grantaire recognises to be one the _Musain’s_ crumpled 100% recycled napkins out of his pockets and roughly swipes at his eyes, and suddenly ignoring _that_ requires more denial than Grantaire is capable of.

“Do you want me to beat someone up for you?” he asks Enjolras, leaning over the balcony and staring down into the night-time street. “My place is close by, I can pop over, grab my boxing gloves, be back in like twenty – “

“Your boxing gloves?” Enjolras repeats.

“I mean, you’re great, boss, but I’m not breaking my knuckles for you,” he replies, and Enjolras gives an exasperated _tsk_.

Delighted to be back in familiar territory, Grantaire presses on. “I mean, well – what did they do? If it’s bad, I can go now. There is a line, I feel, dividing slights against friends that are worth risking a fracture or two, don’t you? I could be talked down to wraps, but again, I’d have to go home for them, and at that point I might as well just get my glo – “

“No, Grantaire, there is no-one you can beat up for me,” Enjolras says firmly over his ramble. “It’s fine. I just need to focus on the _Amis_. I’m being selfish.”

“Oh, _sure,_ ” Grantaire drawls, “You’re being selfish by _feeling sad_. Take it from someone who’s been practicing exclusive self-interest for the better part of 23 years – being selfish is not an emotion but an action one must take. I’ve been very deliberately choosing to be a bastard this whole time, and it actually takes a lot of energy to make sure I don’t accidentally do anything that might benefit anyone else, so don’t you try and take that away from me because you _got some bad news_.”

Reaching the point in his digressions where Enjolras usually interrupts him, Grantaire pauses and glances over, but Enjolras is watching him, quietly smoking.

“And, anyway, it’s not like you have any control over it,” Grantaire continues, blowing a ring of smoke at Enjolras, “I’m sorry to inform you that you’ve got an earthly body, and like every other person, it’s just an unfortunate bag of protein and hormones, and if your synapses decide that your endocrine system is going to make you miserable, well then you just have to suck it up and – are you sure I can’t get someone?”

“No, I think actually, you were the person I needed to talk to,” Enjolras says, causing Grantaire choke mid-way through his drag of smoke.

“Well, you don’t have to sound so surprised,” Grantaire croaks, once he’s done coughing. “According to the laws of entropy increasing the chaotic nature of the universe, I was bound to say something useful at least once in my life.”

“You know a lot about that.” Enjolras observes calmly, completely oblivious to the way it makes Grantaire’s heart doing something that doesn’t feel healthy. “Physics and astronomy?”

“Yeah, well,” Grantaire takes a long drag, “I was a space kid. Astronaut suit, the whole thing.”

“Glow in the dark stars?”

“You bet.”

“Huh.” Enjolras taps out his cigarette on the ashtray. “I would have thought it would have been Rembrandt, or something.”

“That _amateur_ ,” Grantaire scoffs, mostly just to try and make Enjolras laugh. His success is limited to a single corner of Enjolras’ mouth quirking upwards, but it feels worthy of fireworks.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras turns towards him. His face has assumed a not-quite-familiar set, one that Grantaire recognises as being between “Infallible Leader of _Les Amis_ ” and “How Dare You Accuse Me of Having a Personal Life” in his private cataloguing of Enjolras’ expressions. To find a new specimen is, well, intriguing and a little alarming. “I might need to ask you to do something – “

“Boss, if this is about the posters, then I told you – “

“No, not about the posters.” Enjolras shakes his head. “It’s – “

“Hey!” Courfeyrac leans around the balcony door, waving his phone. “They’re cancelling the red line, the last train’s gonna leave in seven minutes.”

“Ah, sh – ,” Enjolras grinds out his cigarette with force, and hurries past Grantaire. He turns back at the last second. “Grantaire, we’ll – “

“Talk later?” Grantaire finishes lamely.

Enjolras adopts a particular set to his mouth that has a hint of concession. Grantaire calls it I’m Agreeing with You, But It Pains Me to Say So.

Enjolras vanishes after Courfeyrac, leaving Grantaire alone with the Paris night and his stupid lighter with it’s stupid gasoline flame which has been closer to Enjolras’ stupid mouth than Grantaire ever would be.

_2 nd APRIL 2018, PARIS_

Grantaire does not discover what the favour that Enjolras wants is for another fortnight. He goes to class. He resists texting Courfeyrac to ask what the fuck is up with Enjolras, not because Grantaire is above gossip (or, for that matter, anything), but because he can just picture the response ( _“why do you want to know? ; - )))))”_ ). He goes to fencing practice with Bahorel and Jehan and gets raucous at the _Corinthe_ with them afterwards. He avoids his dissertation supervisor like he used to avoid sobriety.

“Maybe they’re finally kicking me out,” he ponders to the only person who he can discuss this little mystery with, the calico stray who lingers on the landing of his apartment building.

“ _Miaow_ ,” the cat replies heartlessly.

“Sure, sure, give me a minute,” he says around his cigarette, skilfully jiggling the lock with one hand and opening the door with his knee, other arm full of groceries.

“Freeloader’s here again,” he calls into the living room once inside.

This summons Bossuet faster than you can say “marine biology-themed cartoon plasters”, no less than 3 of which are stuck to his face.

“Ooooh, _Mew-sichetta_ – hey, put that out!” he sing-songs.

“Oh, because you’re clearly in the peak of health,” Grantaire grumbles but having dumped the grocery bag on the kitchen counter, extinguishes his cigarette in the half-cup of cold coffee he’d left out that morning.

“The rule is no smoking in the apart-ment, yes, _isn’t it_ , Mewsichetta?” Bossuet croons to the cat, vaguely to the tune of _My Favourite Things._

“ _Miaow_ ,” the cat opines.

“A minute, I said!” Grantaire finally locates the cat food tin at the bottom of the bag. “Ungrateful feline.”

“Don’t listen to him!” Bossuet covers the cat’s ears.

“I take it your girlfriend doesn’t know she shares a name with this fleabag?” Grantaire asks.

“It was bestowed with _love_!” Bossuet says, righteously indignant.

The human Musichetta comes into the kitchen while the rest of the household is watching the cat eat with varying degrees of fondness, from open (Bossuet) to concealed (Grantaire) to concerned for the horrors that have been visited upon it during its life of destitution (Joly).

“Aw, baby,” she says, making Joly and Bossuet look up, only to realise she’s talking to the cat.

“Have you heard this thing’s name?” Grantaire asks, straight faced. “It’s _Mewsi_ – argh!“

He breaks off, smacked full in the face with the dish towel that Bossuet has thrown.

“It’s Manchego!” Joly exclaims at the same time as Bossuet yells, “Monterey Jack!”

“No, Manchego is better,” Bossuet amends.

Musichetta blinks.

“It is _amazing_ how your minds went to the same place,” Grantaire mutters.

“Oh, R, did you get drinks for tonight?” Musichetta checks, which frankly, Grantaire cannot blame her for.

“Would I fail you, O lady Muse? And what’s more,” he produces two paper bags that have turned almost entirely translucent with butter, “I got to the bakery opposite the station five minutes before they closed…”

Joly grabs the nearest one, critically scanning the contents.

“The gluten-free one?” Bossuet asks, with hope in his eyes.

“The gluten-free one.”

Bossuet cheers.

“The one where R gave his number to the guy who works the evening shift for free pastries,” Musichetta clarifies. Grantaire winks at her.

“This is so much food, R!” Joly opens the second one. “You may actually have to go on a date with this guy.”

“Probably,” Grantaire says. “He’s given me enough free food.”

There’s a knock at the door, and Bossuet dances over to get it, holding the stray in his arms.

“And how much is _that_?” Musichetta asks archly.

“What’re we talking about?” Courfeyrac comes into the kitchen, seeking out gossip like a shark smelling blood.

“It was R’s turn to get snacks for boardgame night, and instead of going to the store, he used his charms on the poor, defenceless – “

“Well, hold on now, he started – “ Grantaire puts up a half-hearted defence.

“– bakery store boy,” Bossuet continues over him, “For some – “

“Cherry lattices!” Courfeyrac exclaims, noticing where Joly has started arranging them on a decorative plate.

“Exactly, you’re _welcome._ ” Grantaire mutters. As has been his habit lately when there are more than four _Amis_ in a room, he casts around, trying to imprint in his memory Courfeyrac’s delighted smile, Joly’s fussing over the pastry placement, the way Bossuet is waving the cat to underscore his explanation.

“And we’re trying to figure out how to keep ‘em coming,” Joly adds.

“Oh?” Courfeyrac grins. “What’s your going rate, R?”

“Yeah, how many _pain au chocolates_ for a date?” Musichetta asks.

“Butter _croissants,_ please,” Grantaire implores. “If I’m selling my body for my friends, I might as well be a high-class whore.”

“What?” a new voice asks.

Belatedly, Grantaire notices that Courfeyrac has not come alone. His eyes slide past Enjolras to the coat stand where Enjolras has clearly been fussy enough to hang up his overcoat (in _April?_ Really?) on an honest-to-God hanger.

“Oh, look, Enjolras!” Bossuet says. “Hey, man!”

“Hi,” Enjolras says. “What’s happening?”

Grantaire shakes his head at Courfeyrac. Courfeyrac pretends not to see him.

“We’re just figuring out how much pastry Grantaire is willing to prostitute himself for,” Courfeyrac sells him out without a hint of remorse. It’s an unfortunate side effect of Courfeyrac’s effusive personality that he doesn’t want _anyone_ to be left out of _any_ conversation.

Grantaire plasters on a grin.

“Don’t lead people on like that if you don’t mean it, that’s really –“ Enjolras starts.

“Hey, you don’t know I didn’t mean it,” Grantaire smirks, leaning back against the counter. “He said it would just go to waste otherwise, and tell me how could I, as a child of this beautiful planet, allow such a crime?”

Enjolras opens his mouth to retort, but luckily their group is well-practiced at breaking up Enjolras – Grantaire spats.

“Jehan just put on the group chat that they’ll be here in fifteen,” Courfeyrac says smoothly. “Apparently there was an incident with Theresa and a member of the public who has since been told what’s what.”

“Were those Jehan’s words?” Musichetta asks, amused.

“No, Jehan’s words were _had their disgusting and uneducated opinions corrected and general manner of public conduct rectified,”_ Courfeyrac reads out.

“Nice,” Musichetta nods.

“O- _kay,_ ” Joly says, holding up his finished pastry arrangement, “who’s ready to play some Risk?”

“By the way, R,” Courfeyrac catches Grantaire by the elbow whilst everyone shuffles out of the kitchen. “Are you coming to the _Musain_ on Monday?”

“Shouldn’t I?” Grantaire scans his memory for any particularly egregious behaviour in recent recollection, but he thinks he’s been mostly on his usual level of nuisance-making.

“No, you should!” Courfeyrac says and bounces out of the kitchen.

“Yup, they’re throwing me out,” Grantaire tells the cat morosely.

It ignores him and follows Courfeyrac into the living room.

_3 rd APRIL 2018, PARIS_

Joke about it though he may, this thought has filtered out of Grantaire’s frontal lobe and lodged firmly in his cerebellum by Monday afternoon. He can feel it jittering around in there like a spider trapped under a cup, and it is to this that he attributes accidentally arriving early to the donation drive.

He therefore finds himself seated at the front table with a clipboard, adding to the list of donations in the most ostentatious calligraphy he can muster.

 _This is a good thing,_ he tells himself.

The truth is that in first year, Grantaire had been on course for a complete and cataclysmic self-destruction. He’d come to from cocktails of pharmaceuticals with more components than there was hidden symbolism in a Botticelli, come to in the arms of men and women he’d called his friends, in unnumbered unknown bedrooms, on sidewalks and Juliet balconies and once, very memorably, in the Seine.

Then, he had fallen in with the _Amis_. In the privacy of his own mind, Grantaire can admit that some part of him must have wanted to pull the breaks on the runaway train of his lifestyle, before his liver and collagen finally gave out. The lure of genuine friendship had been enough to draw him off that path, like an asteroid nudged out of a collision course by the gravitational well of a passing comet.

He was finishing his master’s now, and Grantaire has been feeling the clammy hands of graduation clawing towards him since term started. He knows that life after university is different. The rest of the _Amis_ are brilliant, talented, unique, all that good stuff – they want to change the world, and for that they need to hatch out of their cosy university friendship bubble and get out into it.

There will be no more boardgame nights crowding nine people onto two sofas and a lounge chair, no more caffeine-hazy sunny morning coffee meetings, no more assurance of company, no matter the activity. No more twilight smoking on a balcony with the most beautiful man in Paris.

The other _Amis_ will be fine. But for himself, Grantaire is certain, there will never be another time like this one, another group like this.

Adulthood is different. Friendship is different. Between riling Enjolras up for a scrap of his attention, Grantaire has spent the last so-many months of meetings looking around, trying to commit every sight, every sound to perfect memory, and telling his growing nausea, _you will never have this again._ Grantaire has been the purgatory of deciding between throw himself into the _Amis_ before it’s all over, or to start turning down invitations, and hold himself apart to try and spare himself a little of the eventual pain.

So, to have the choice made for him is a good thing. It is.

“Thank you kindly,” he says to a middle-aged lady who has dropped off a tote bag of sanitary products at the donation drive. Behind her stands Marius Pontmercy.

“Hi, R! How are you?” he asks, putting a box of tampons on the table.

“You know, beset upon by woe and misery from all sides,” Grantaire responds, adding the tampons to the inventory with a flourish.

“Oh! Uhm.” Poor Marius looks genuinely concerned, so Grantaire smiles at him to underscore the sarcasm. Logically, Grantaire knows that Marius is smart, capable and on-track for an Honours in Law, but somehow always ends up wondering who let him venture outside whenever they interact.

The next _Amis_ to show up, fifteen minutes later, are Combeferre and Cosette Fauchelevent. Cosette is the newest addition to _Les Amis_ , being Combeferre’s friend from the biomed department (medicine in his case and veterinary science in hers). Grantaire appreciates the _Amis’_ current power couple being responsible for introducing the _Amis’_ most fairy-tale couple to one another.

Or so Grantaire predicts. There isn’t technically a Cosette-and-Marius. Yet.

Cosette is pretty, and kind, and hardy, and _very_ fashionable. She teaches kid’s karate at the community centre and tutors Eponine’s little sister in Chemistry. She blogs about vegan clothes and brings Bossuet home-grown flowers without fail every time he ends up in A&E. If Grantaire were Marius, he’d probably fall head-over-unironic-boat-shoes in love with her too.

Speaking of which, Grantaire surveys the _Musain_ discreetly until he spots Marius ordering at the counter. He has not yet noticed Cosette, as evidence by the lack of breakages around his person.

Perfect.

“Grantaire!” Cosette greets him.

“Euphrasie,” Grantaire responds in kind.

“Sorry, _R_ ,” she corrects.

“What have you got for me today, _Cosette_?” Grantaire makes sure to raise his voice slightly towards the end.

_Crash._

“Oh, sorry, I’m so sorry.” Marius says earnestly to the waiter, struggling to hold onto his cups of coffee, and right the metal barrier pole with his foot.

“Here, let me – “Cosette immediately hurries over and gently pulls it upright.

Satisfied, Grantaire turns back to the queue. Hurrying _that_ along to its inevitable conclusion is his parting gift to the group.

“I can take over, if you’d like, R,” Combeferre says. “Thank you. By the way, if you wouldn’t mind staying until the end, we’d like to have a talk with you in private.”

“We?”

“Ah, sorry. Me, Enjolras and Courfeyrac.”

The Golden Triumvirate. Grantaire’s stomach drops. He forces a smile.

“Sure thing, chief.”

Giving Combeferre casual fingerguns and immediately regretting it, Grantaire heads further back into the rest of the café. There’s a good corner to mope in behind the napkin stand, but some cramming first-years have claimed it. He resigns himself to curling up on one of the couches, ignoring the salty looks from the waitress, and feigning sleep for the next hour and forty minutes.

Grantaire cracks an eye open when hears the last patrons of the café shuffle out, and the waitress – whose animosity has not faded – has started stacking chairs.

Well. She might never have to see him again.

Giving her his best approximation of an apologetic smile, Grantaire slinks up the back stairs, and lets himself into the back room. This is where he finds the triptych of leaders of _Les Amis._

They are sitting, Grantaire realises, exactly the same way that they had been sitting the last time he’d seen the three together – around the little round window table, Enjolras in the centre, with Combeferre on his left and Courfeyrac on his right.

There’s a chair facing them, which must be for him. He slides into it, nodding at each of them in turn, not meeting anyone’s eyes. His mouth is very dry.

“So, uhm, what’s up?” Grantaire asks. He picks at a bit of congealed candlewax on the table’s pitted and scarred surface with his thumbnail.

There’s no immediate answer. Grantaire glances up and sees that Combeferre and Courfeyrac are debating using only their eyes. Courfeyrac, who is confidence made alive, looks nervous. Grantaire’s heart speeds up.

Enjolras puts his elbows on the table.

“Grantaire,” he says intently. “We - _I’m_ going to ask for your help with something, and I want to be extremely _clear,_ you can say no at _any time._ ”

“Ok-ay,” Grantaire says slowly, beginning to wonder if maybe this meeting is not to throw him out of _Les Amis_ after all _._ “What’s happening, are you planning a blood ritual? Do you need a human sacrifice? Because you should know, I am definitely not a virgin.”

“Oh, we _know_ ,” Courfeyrac quips.

“Maybe we should start from the beginning?” Combeferre gives Courfeyrac a firm look, the kind that Grantaire dreams of being familiar enough to receive from Enjolras.

“So, R, you remember those protests last summer?” Courfeyrac starts.

Oh, how Grantaire remembers. He nods.

“Well, because of those arrests,” Courfeyrac glances at Enjolras. “Enjolras’s visa can’t get renewed.”

“What – those -” Grantaire forgets about not looking at Enjolras and stares at him. Enjolras tacitly meets his gaze, and confirmation settles like lead in Grantaire’s stomach. “But – your internship – can’t they -”

Enjolras shakes his head. “They tried sponsoring my application, but it didn’t help.”

“That’s such bullshit,” Grantaire mutters. “We were just standing in the street. What was even the charge?”

“R,” Combeferre says with just the slightest hint of a sigh. Right. Grantaire shuts up. “We are going to appeal, but well.”

“The immigration court is a fucking joke,” Courfeyrac says bluntly. “So, we. Okay, I’m going to stop dancing around it. We -” he gestures to the table, “– are working on a back-up plan.”

“Great, excellent,” Grantaire nods. “What is it?”

He’s aware of Enjolras watching him very closely.

“There’s one way that Enjolras could stay in France for the foreseeable future and get permanent residency much quicker than a work visa,” Combeferre says.

“Uh- huh,” Grantaire says, and when no-one clarifies, adds, “Look, we all know I’m a privileged asshole, you’re going to have to spell it out for me.”

The three friends exchange a look.

“Marrying a citizen,” Combeferre says simply.

“Ah, _right_. I mean, yikes, but gotta consider your options. So, you want to know if I can recommend any eligible _citoyens?_ Probably, I know a lot of people. What are you preferen…” Grantaire trails off as three pairs of eyes continue to consider him. “Oh – oh surely fucking _not._ ”

“We just wanted ask if it was something you would possibly consider,” Combeferre says. “There’s absolutely no expectation. That’s why we started by saying you can always say -”

“You guys know that _poisson d’avril_ was last week, right?” Grantaire jumps up, unable to stay sitting suddenly. “I need to smoke.”

“Open a window,” Combeferre allows, apparently appreciating the necessity of nicotine in this situation.

Grantaire goes over to the closest one and swings it open. The sounds of traffic filter up from the street, agitated drivers who have no idea about the absolute madness currently occurring in the _Musain_ back room.

“What,” Grantaire begins once he’s lit a cigarette up, “Why -” _Me_? He can’t even say it.

“I would want to keep it in the _Amis_. You’re the only ones I would trust with this,” Enjolras says, and his use of _vous_ would make Grantaire’s head swim if he didn’t already feel like he was going to pass out.

“And everyone else is either already in a relationship, a woman, or doesn’t date guys,” Courfeyrac explains.

Grantaire crosses them off in his mind – Courfeyrac, Combeferre, Joly, Bossuet, Musichetta, Bahorel, Feuilly, Jehan, Marius, Éponine, Cosette…

“You guys really thought this through, huh?” Grantaire inhales unsteadily from his cigarette, which is not doing its goddamn job. Curse his ridiculous tolerance.

“We don’t want to lose our best friend,” Courfeyrac says straightforwardly.

“Yeah, yeah, I can - I can see why. You guys never do anything by yourselves, even -” Grantaire laughs shakily, “- proposing. Is Enjolras going to third-wheel your engagement, too?”

“Of course,” Courfeyrac replies, unruffled. “He’s got a pivotal role in the dance sequence.”

“And, you, boss,” Grantaire directs at Enjolras, “you’re okay with this?”

Enjolras sighs. “I’m not delighted, but this is my home, this is where everyone who cares about me is. I had to at least ask.”

“Fine but, I cannot believe I’m the one who has to point this out, _who_ is going to buy – and I feel insane just saying this – me and Enjolras as a couple?”

“It’s opposites attract,” Courfeyrac shrugs.

“ _It’s opp_ –,” Grantaire begins sarcastically. He drops into his chair again. “Opposites attract is what you say about you and Combeferre. We’re not chalk and cheese, Courf, we’re – we’re matter and antimatter. I would bet you my meagre artistic skill that if me and Enjolras touch we will literally cancel out into pure energy -”

“Please,” Courfeyrac mutters, “It’s not like you voted for _Front National_.”

“It’s not like I voted _at all_ , Courf, which is worse, right?” he turns, beseechingly, to Enjolras of all people to be sane in this conversation.

Enjolras does not rise to this very obvious bait. “R, be serious. Is it so impossible that you could like me?”

Grantaire gapes. He gapes at Courfeyrac who shrugs once more, at Combeferre, who goes to adjust his glasses before realising he put contacts in today, and again at Enjolras, who is finally starting to frown.

“Okay, I’m choosing not to be insulted by that,” Enjolras says.

Grantaire claws at his face with his hands.

“Boss,” he says. “I’m dying. I want you to know that. You are killing me.”

“Yes,” Enjolras replies drily, “So you tell me every week.”

“It’s a death by a thousand cuts,” Grantaire whines through his hands. “But to answer your question, no, it’s not entirely beyond me to convincingly pretend to be in love with you.”

 _Say something_ , his brain reminds him after 10 flat seconds of sitting with his head in his hands. “Okay. I’ve suspended my belief in reality. I have a few questions.”

“Shoot,” Courfeyrac answers.

“How…how would we make this work?” Grantaire says. “I’ve faked a lot of things in my time, but this is … well. “

“We’d need some evidence,” Enjolras says, still watching Grantaire as closely as a jury considers an arson suspect. “To show it was a genuine relationship.”

“Like, photos and stuff?” Grantaire asks.

“And,” Enjolras says, with a slight tone of reluctance. “we’d need to show we lived together.”

“We’d need to fake living together?”

“No, we’d -” Enjolras runs both hands through his curls, a gesture that reduces Grantaire’s thoughts to white noise at the _best_ of times, “ – we’d actually have to live together. For a bit.”

“And by a bit, you mean…?”

Enjolras steels himself. “Two years.”

This is about what Grantaire had been expecting, but he still ends up coughing a little on cigarette smoke.

Enjolras’s frown in melting away. Grantaire recognises this slow slide from anticipation into acknowledgment. Enjolras has made up his mind that Grantaire won’t help him. It makes the very sensible, very non-contrarian part of his brain want to throw himself at Enjolras’ feet just to see his face when he’s been proved wrong. And perhaps for some other reasons, as well.

“Hey, Combeferre, can you become too tolerant to nicotine?” Grantaire asks.

Enjolras looks away from him, like he can’t bear to watch him anymore. This is another familiar expression.

“Yes,” Combeferre replies. “You should cut back. Are you okay to keep going? There’s one more thing.”

“Sure, sure. Keep pitching me -” Grantaire can’t help it, he laughs a little, the hysteria overtaking him, “- _getting married to Enjolras.”_

“R, you were thinking about doing a doctorate, right?” Combeferre asks.

This is technically true, but it was only so Grantaire could put off getting a real job and contributing to society for another three years.

“Ye – e – e - s?” he answers, wary of this new direction in an already disorienting conversation. “But I’ll never get funding. Even so, it should probably go to someone who, y’know, actually cares.”

Combeferre passes the ball to Enjolras with a glance. Grantaire follows this invisible game of conversational tennis, a few seconds behind every strike.

“The Institute offered me permanent position,” Enjolras leans forward. “The pay is pretty good. It’s enough to support two people, and I was thinking – if you help me with this, I could help you live in Paris while you get your PhD.”

Cigarette ash drips onto the table as Grantaire stares at Enjolras. _It’s pretty late to be developing a sense of pride_ , his brain tells him. He ignores it.

“Boss,” he says and finds his voice an octave lower than usual. “I’m a pretty shitty person but you do not need to _bribe_ me into helping you not get kicked out of the country.”

Enjolras manages to look like _he’s_ the one who’s been insulted.

“I’m not -” he breaks off, exasperated, then takes a breath. When he starts speaking again, his voice is calm and steady. “Courfeyrac pointed out to me that if you help me and I don’t help you in return in some way, it would put in you in a position of enormous power over me. And we – _I_ – thought that would make you pretty uncomfortable.” Enjolras sighs. “That’s all.”

Grantaire opens his mouth to spit more fire at Enjolras, but what comes out instead is, “Okay. I’ll think about it.”

He just manages to exit the room without running. Just.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Updates should be every 3 weeks <3


	2. ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’d rather become a stripper than go talk to Enjolras?” Musichetta asks.
> 
> “To be fair,” Grantaire points out, “I’d rather become a stripper than do most things.”

_3 rd APRIL 2018, PARIS_

Grantaire loses himself in the streets and waterways of Paris. He skitters over the cobblestones across the 7th arrondissment until he finds the river. Its sluggish meanderings are the perfect mirror for his thoughts, which are mainly, _I’m bad, I’m a bad person._

Because Grantaire’s first feeling is relief. It’s like a smaller Seine that washes down his spine and leaves a familiar cocktail of guilt and delight in its wake. The sudden lack of adrenaline is making him a little light-headed. God, he’s pathetic, but he doesn’t have to leave _Les Amis_ yet.

Grantaire sits down heavily on the bottom step of the broad stone stairs leading down to the river promenade. It’s six pm, and unaffected Parisians on their way home pass by him like he’s part of the weathered façade.

He buries his head in his hands.

The dizziness lets up slightly.

On reflection, Grantaire thinks, he is not all that surprised. Trust Enjolras, Courfeyrac and Combeferre to tackle a serious, grounded problem with ridiculous boldness, and reply to the government’s injustices with complete irreverence. What’s unexpected is that they would ever think to include Grantaire in their plans.

Of course, he is going to say _yes_.

In the list of things that Grantaire would do to keep Enjolras in Paris, lying to the authorities about his relationship status is inconsequentially easy. That’s nothing compared to some other featured items. Take on a legion. Launch a thousand ships. Don his armour and fight in his place.

God, he’s pathetic _and_ dramatic.

He jumps up, and starts walking along the waterside, weaving amongst grey businessmen and students on bikes and toddlers lingering to watch the swans.

No, whether Grantaire will agree is not the question. He sticks his hands in his pockets. Something is missing from them, he feels.

The universe is mocking him, he’s sure. The Grantaire of two years ago would have expired for the chance to become an auxiliary part to Enjolras. He used to fantasize about becoming a good person for the chance to be reborn as Enjolras’ bottle of wine-red nail polish, or the collar of the organic cotton shirt he wears to his internship. Grantaire could curve around Enjolras’ neck and contain his unbending spine.

But now.

Well, Grantaire handed in four out of six pieces of coursework on time this semester. He consistently sleeps in a bed. Usually even his own. He’s the platonic fourth part to his flatmate’s romantic harmony. He even sort-of has a _cat_.

Grantaire passes under the Pont Neuf, and in the sudden shadow, sees himself lighting Enjolras’ cigarette, automatically replaying the flick of his own ragged thumbnail on the wheel, the burst and stutter of the flame. It’s been looping behind his eyelids for the past two weeks. And now, he’s meant to, what? Hold hands with him in public? Will they take selfies together? Will Enjolras smile?

Yep, Grantaire is going to lose his mind. All those little parts of a sane and normal life he had been very slowly stacking up are going to come crashing down like a particularly queer game of Giant Jenga.

He bounds up the steps on the other side of the bridge and walks, eventually turning in to Rue Perronet. There’s an old wrought iron fire escape ladder behind the café on this street, so old that it’s stuck in place and is never taken up. He slips into the alleyway and starts to climb.

He shimmies over the rooftop on his hands and knees until he gets over the gable and can see the river again.

But what’s the alternative, he wonders, drawing his knees to his chest. Let Enjolras do this with a stranger? Stand by as he leaves his adopted home behind and go back to whatever unmentioned thing came before? Grantaire rests his chin on his knees and pictures it. He could do it – he’s lowered himself to worse before. He’s shrugged off other people’s problems with a frankly scary ease of conscience for years.

This is a punishment, Grantaire decides. Evidently going through the twelve steps hadn’t been enough. Now, Grantaire is going to have pretend to do something for someone else, all the while knowing he’s acting out of the same grimy self-interest as always. _Well played, universe._

“Please,” Grantaire begs the streets and skies of Paris, who is as much as a god a he’s ever had, “Please, let me do this one selfish, good deed and make it through alive.”

From here, he knows, he can cut across the rooftops to the metro to take him home. He works his way across to an apartment block that always leaves the roof hatch open, then trudges down the stairwell to street level.

As he approaches the station entrance, Grantaire sticks his hand into his pocket for his wallet so he can get out his metro card.

It’s empty.

“Ah, _fuck,_ ” he says. The other pocket only contains his lighter and a squashed packet of _Gauloises_. “Fuck, fuck.”

Grantaire thinks. He must have put his wallet and keys into his bag. And his bag is –

Still in the _Musain._

“Fuck,” he reiterates.

It’s closer to seven pm by the time he turns on to his street. It’s his own fault for wandering so far from the _Musain_ \- there was a reason they lived so close to campus. Admittedly, that reason was saving Joly’s legs a long walk to get to class, but it did quite nicely for Grantaire’s laziness as well.

He circles around to the side of his apartment block. He recognises their kitchen window by the lace trim that Musichetta’s _abuela_ crocheted for them, and the extremely overgrown aloe vera plant that had permanent medical residency, in preparation for the next time Bossuet burns himself making microwave popcorn.

He scoops a handful of shale from the walkway and takes aim.

The first rock bounces off the frame with a perfect _clink._

Grantaire waits a reasonable amount of time and tries again.

_Clink._

He pitches another. The instant the stone leaves his hand, the window swings open.

“Argh!” Bossuet yells, his face disappearing from view as quickly as it had appeared, one hand over his forehead.

“Oh God, oh fuck!” Grantaire yells. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry!”

Joly sticks his head out the window.

“Joly, I’m sorry!” Grantaire calls up. “Is he okay?”

Joly vanishes, instantly replaced with Musichetta.

“R, what the hell are you doing?” she demands. “Don’t you have your keys?”

“No, I accidentally left my bag at the _Musain_. Is Bossuet okay?”

Musichetta turns away and a few dark strands of her long, curling hair tumble out of the window and are gently buffeted by the breeze. Her face reappears. “He says you’re the worst Romeo ever.”

She even rolls the _R_ with sarcasm.

“Tell him I’ll make it up to him. I’ll compose a sonnet. An ode.”

“Grantaire’s writing you shitty poetry,” Musichetta calls back into the kitchen. “He gave a thumbs up.”

“Lady Muse, you won’t believe the day – well, the afternoon, really – the afternoon that I have had.”

“I’ll say.” Musichetta doesn’t look too livid, so Grantaire figures Bossuet is probably going to live.

“Please, what does this humble supplicant have to do to be allowed into his flat?” he puts his hands together to beg her. There’s a call from the kitchen.

“Uh, hang on,” Musichetta turns around. “Give me a minute, the boys need me. No, babe, he can wa- R, tell Joly you can wait a minute.”

“I can wait!” Grantaire yells, very well able to picture the situation in the flat kitchen. “People are looking at me like they should give me a euro right now, so I might even turn a profit!

“Well, that’s your own fault for dressing like you’re going interrailing to find yourself. _What_ , babe, he _does_!”

Despite himself, Grantaire grins. He waves Musichetta away, and a scant five minutes later, the door buzzes. Grantaire vaults himself over the railing to yank it open before it closes. The door to their flat is ajar, he slides reluctantly inside, following the voices of his flatmates to kitchen.

It’s just as he imagined. Bossuet, perching on a stool, is holding a gel ice pack to his head (there were no amateur bags of frozen peas in _this_ household, Bossuet would say, they treated minor lacerations like professionals). Joly, standing next to him, is weighing up two packets of medicine in each hand like the scales of Justice. Musichetta is busy sweeping up something that has spilled on the floor around an overturned Tupperware.

“Maybe ibuprofen _and_ aspirin? Is that overkill?” Joly asks himself. “No, but then paracetamol for the pain…”

“It doesn’t hurt that much,” Bossuet says. Joly goes to pop out some pills, then pauses.

“You can’t take these on an empty stomach,” he says, “when did you eat?”

Bossuet grimaces. “My poor fried rice was going to be dinner, but, well - ”

“I can make pancakes,” Grantaire volunteers. This is the best way he knows to assuage his guilt. Banana pancakes and a lot of honey.

“R!” Bossuet says, noticing him for the first time, “where’s my shitty poetry?”

“Oooh, pancakes,” Musichetta says from the floor.

“Hey, man, are you okay?”

“Fine! It isn’t even bleeding!” Bossuet lifts up the gel pack to show him. “Don’t worry, it’s not really your fault. I already hit my head there once today. Actually, it’s kind of a funny story…”

“You should definitely make pancakes,” Musichetta says, emptying the dustpan into the bin. “Babe, we need to give R some space.”

This is directed at Joly, who does not move, preoccupied with checking the side effects of ibuprofen.

“Oh, no, uhm, you can stay there,” Grantaire says, “I’ll dance around you.”

“But which dance?” Bossuet inquires.

“Ah, uhm,” Grantaire does a poor imitation a of a foxtrot around Bossuet’s stool, earning him a delighted cackle. He grabs a saucepan off the rack above the cooker, and lines up ingredients. Flour, sugar, baking powder, Musichetta passes him the bananas from the fruit bowl on the opposite counter. He chews his lip, wondering how to get past Bossuet to the fridge.

“Okay, ready?” Grantaire steps with his invisible partner to behind Bossuet, puts one arm behind his friend, and dramatically dips him. “Joly, the milk and eggs! And butter!”

“Oh, _monsieur_ , so forward!” Bossuet pretends to swoon, lifting his spare hand to his forehead, and accidentally bumping the swelling. “ _Ouch._ ”

This rouses Joly, who swings open the fridge door across Bossuet’s bent-back torso, pulling out ingredients. He shuts the door, and Grantaire returns Bossuet to an upright position. He sets about making the batter.

They eat pancakes in the living room. Bossuet ties his gel pack in place using a novelty tie so he can use his utensils. They yell over the answers on University Challenge.

“So why was _your_ day so bad, R?” Musichetta is on one end of the sofa, Joly squished in between her and Bossuet. Grantaire is being slowly swallowed by their beanbag chair, balancing his plate of pancakes on his stomach.

“And is it related to why Enjolras is posting on the group chat asking if you’re alive?” Bossuet chimes in.

“He’s _what_?” Grantaire yelps. He pats his pockets wildly for his phone, before remembering that it’s in his bag with the rest of his possessions. Bossuet passes Grantaire his phone. It’s open on the _Amis_ group chat.

Enjolras (read, 6:12 pm)

_Does anyone know where R is?_

_Is he ok?_

_He left his backpack at the Musain._

Musichetta (read, 6:57 pm)

_He just got home lol he had to throw rocks at the window to get in_

Grantaire calms down just a fraction, then immediately ramps back up into distress when he reads the next part.

Enjolras (read, 6:58 pm)

_Okay, please will you tell him I’ve got his bag?_

“Did you have another fight with him and storm out?” Joly asks. Grantaire considers. This is not technically far from the truth.

“Uhm, sort of, it was _extremely_ weird - ” he starts, then freezes. Joly – Bossuet – Musichetta usually get a frustrated blow-by-blow of his arguments with Enjolras until they get sick of listening to him complain and yell at him to shut up. Out of habit, he was about to launch into such a tirade, until he realises that saying ‘ _Enjolras’ visa renewal is getting denied’_ out loud sounds _intensely_ personal. “Actually, I don’t know if I can tell you, yet?”

Three heads swivel in perfect synchronisation to look at him. 

“You had an argument you can’t tell us about?” Bossuet says, puzzled.

“Did you get into a _secret fight_ with Enjolras?” Joly asks.

“Uhm,” Grantaire thinks. “Yes?”

“Ooooh, secret fight!” Musichetta mumbles around her fork.

“Secret fight! Secret fight!” Bossuet chants. 

“Did he figure out your hidden secret identity as the prince of a tiny, never-previously-known European country?” Musichetta asks.

“Did you say that antifa has terrible graphic design again?” Joly guesses.

“Why would that be a secret?” Bossuet says. “Clearly, he asked Grantaire to be his second in a duel against a ratman from the sewers.”

“And why did Enjolras challenge the ratman to a duel?” Musichetta asks.

“For saying antifa has terrible graphic design, obviously.”

The three of them dissolve into giggles. Grantaire looks down at the pool of honey on his last pancake. This is nice. His flatmates caring about his bad day even after he injured one of them is nice. The pancakes are nice. He’s not sure about having nice things right now.

Despite how awful and dehumanising this must all be, Enjolras asked for Grantaire’s help, and Grantaire all but ran out on him. _Then,_ whilst Grantaire was having an existential crisis in the backstreets of Paris, Enjolras was checking if _Grantaire_ was okay. Out of a very misplaced sense of duty, but, nonetheless. His throat tightens over.

“Awh, baby,” Musichetta notices his expression first, “did the secret fight really actually get you down?”

Grantaire makes a face.

“Oh, no,” Joly sympathizes, “was it really bad?”

Grantaire clears his throat. He glances at the novelty tie holding the ice pack on Bossuet’s head in place. “Well, I can’t give anything away, but I daresay … I daresay all will be revealed with time.” 

“What are you gonna do about your bag?” Bossuet asks.

“Well,” Grantaire swirls his fork in the leftover honey and melted butter. “I probably shouldn’t disturb him in the evening … _or ever,_ so I’ll just have to get a new phone and new laptop and cancel all my bank cards and make my peace with never seeing it again.”

“Is this about the secret fight,” Joly asks, “or is this just you being a standard useless bisexual?”

“ _Ouch_.” Grantaire mimes being stabbed through the heart. Joly giggles.

“What about your student ID card?” Bossuet asks.

Grantaire thinks. “I’ll quit my degree and become a stripper.”

“Sensible.” Joly nods.

“You’d rather become a stripper than go talk to Enjolras?” Musichetta asks.

“To be fair,” Grantaire points out, “I’d rather become a stripper than do most things.”

“ _Grantaire says he’d rather quit his degree and become a stripper than come get it back,”_ Bossuet reads out as he types on his phone, which Grantaire realises, is probably still open on the group chat.

“ _No_!” Grantaire yells, immediately launching himself at Bossuet. Bossuet yelps as he fumbles his phone away from Grantaire’s grabbing hands. He tosses it over Joly to Musichetta, whose hand shoots out to catch it with uncanny accuracy. She glances at the screen.

“Oh, no, babe,” she says ominously. She holds up the screen to show them.

You (read, 6:58 pm)

_Grantaire says he’d rather quit his degree and become a stripper than come get it back_

“ _Hnnng_.” Grantaire says with eloquence

“Oh, no, oh no, I broke him!” Bossuet says. “I’m sorry, R!”

“This _day_ has broken me,” Grantaire corrects, hollowly. He sinks back into his beanbag. “L’Aigle, I think we’re even now.”

“Hang on, I’ll fix this,” Joly takes the phone from Musichetta. “ _Joking, R did not say that. He actually says he’ll come by your place tomorrow morning.”_

“Yeah, we’re even!” Bossuet grins. He sticks out his hand.

They shake on it.

_4 TH APRIL 2018, PARIS_

Grantaire leans heavily on the buzzer to the Enjolras – Combeferre – Courfeyrac – Marius residence at a little past seven the next morning.

There’s no answer.

He lets the doorway take most of his weight, wondering what to do. The street outside is beginning its day, and he watches café staff and cleaners make their way to work in an unspoken, exhausted shuffle.

Grantaire, a life-long and unapologetic commentator on the world around him, has know Paris at all hours. He’s staggered home in blackened twilights, when the city has slipped under the blanket of a continuous night stretching from ancient times until today; the same shadows spilling over the same cobblestones for a thousand years. He’s basked in the streaming midday sun in the _jardins_ and smoked away clouded evenings where the edges of the city blended into the salt-pink sunset.

He recognises this particular time of morning, however, as the quiet, determined hour that belongs to bus drivers and service workers. They unlock shop doors and slump in train seats and set the city in motion.

Grantaire hugs his arms across his chest. It’s too early to be warm, and he’s become aware of two new holes in this hoody since he set out from home. This is a huge shame, because it’s his least paint-spattered one. He runs over the plan in his head again. Enter, grab his bag, exit. If pressed (which he doubts, because Enjolras is too polite for that), say that he’s still thinking about it. Avoid Enjolras for at least a week, before very magnanimously texting his agreement.

He needed to compromise on not showing his hand on how absolutely pathetic he is, and not being a total dick. This was the best he could come up with.

Grantaire rings the buzzer again.

“ _Oui_?” a tinny voice says.

“It’s the man of your dreams,” Grantaire replies.

There’s a pause. Then; “…R?”

The lack of amusement allows Grantaire to identify the voice as belonging to Enjolras.

“I’m here for my bag,” Grantaire says.

“Bag?” Enjolras asks.

“Yes, my bag.” Grantaire repeats. “You’ve got it, right?”

“Bag.” Enjolras repeats.

Grantaire frowns.

“Oh, _bag._ Yes.”

There’s the dull tone of the line being ended, and for a moment Grantaire is fully convinced Enjolras has hung up on him, but a heartbeat later the door clicks unlocked.

 _Remember the plan_ , he tells himself firmly as he climbs the stairs to the 3rd _étage_ , _we are pretending to think about it for at least a week._ He knocks carefully, and the door does not so much open as melt away in cowardice at Enjolras’ expression.

Grantaire’s mind goes blank. Enjolras turns his scowl upon him for just a moment before turning and shuffling back inside, denying Grantaire the chance to ask _who_ has thrown a bucket of paint over Enjolras, and _why_. Grantaire follows Enjolras mindlessly through the living space and into the kitchenette. Much like his own flat, it’s reasonably sized for Paris and a broom closet for everywhere else.

“Coffee.” Enjolras says flatly. He pauses, holding a packet of coffee grounds. A miniscule frown line appears between his eyebrows. “Coffee?” he tries again.

“Me?” Grantaire asks, his brain still stuck on Enjolras’ t-shirt. He sees now that the paint is old and dried out. There’s a particular smear of daisy-yellow that looks kind of like a cat. “Oh, sure. Please. Thank you.”

Grantaire watches, entranced, as Enjolras spoons coffee into the coffeemaker. Some of it scatters on the kitchen counter. Enjolras seems completely unaware, patting the grounds haphazardly with the back of a teaspoon. He fills the base up with water and sets it on the stovetop to brew.

His curls are slightly crushed on one side.

“Boss,” Grantaire says cautiously; Enjolras still looks incredibly annoyed. “Did I wake you up?”

Enjolras nods stiffly. He sticks his hands into the pockets of his faded dressing gown. It looks like a well-practiced gesture. Grantaire has stumbled into a pocket dimension, one where Enjolras has a dressing gown, and a morning routine, and makes himself espresso before he can form full sentences.

“I’m so sorry, I’ll just grab my bag and go,” Grantaire says, trying to keep a hold of himself. On the stove, the coffeemaker begins to burble.

“Don’t be rude. Stay for coffee.” Enjolras says firmly, and Grantaire is struck by very Parisian Enjolras is. Smoking ten a day and making espresso for the most annoying person he knows. Parisian in all but name. Grantaire’s plan disintegrates and floats away through the open kitchen window.

“Enjolras,” he hears himself say, “the marriage thing. I’ll do it.”

The coffee spills over. Enjolras doesn’t react. The stovetop gas ring hisses and the flames flicker yellow, and Grantaire leans over hurriedly and switches them off.

 _We had a_ plan _,_ he despairs to himself. Very cautiously, he looks at Enjolras. Enjolras is staring at him with only a little more blankness than what appears to be his usual morning expression.

“You’ll do it?”

“Yep.” He can hear his own heartbeat, he realises, in his ears. It’s going quite fast. _Please react,_ he silently begs Enjolras.

“You’re – you’re being serious?” Finally, finally, a tiny little frown line appears between Enjolras’ perfect eyebrows.

“Unless you changed your mind? Grantaire half-jokes. Suddenly needing something to do, he opens a cupboard at random. He turns back to Enjolras. “Where are your mugs?”

Enjolras shakes his head, trying to blink away his frown. “Grantaire. Th – “

“No, don’t,” Grantaire says quickly. “That’ll have to be the first rule. You’re not allowed to thank me. It’s not like I don’t owe you.”

He swallows. The next cupboard he pulls open contains a couple of little espresso cups. He takes them down.

“You don’t – “

“Just pour me some coffee, boss.” Grantaire passes him the cups. Enjolras takes them, handing Grantaire back one dangerously full of scalding _café_. Enjolras looks like he wants to protest more, and Grantaire knows he won’t be able to bear it. “Hey, cheer up. We just got engaged.”

He clinks his cup against Enjolras’ and drinks. It burns all the way down. Grantaire goes to hop up on the counter, and just as he sets down his cup, Enjolras catches his sleeve. Grantaire is pretty sure his heart stops.

“Grantaire. You really don’t have to do this because of…of that.”

Actually, Grantaire is fairly certain he would, if he were a better person. “Oh, don’t you worry. I’m doing this for entirely self-serving reasons,” he says cheerfully. _Don’t, please, please don’t push it,_ he pleads in his head.

Enjolras lets go of his sleeve, and agonisingly slowly, leans back against counter. Grantaire remembers to inhale. Enjolras take a measured sip of his coffee. The furrow is his brow has deepened. Grantaire suspects it goes all the way down, past his skin and skull, emanating from some central, core tenet of Enjolras’ person.

Grantaire perches on the countertop and desperately searches Enjolras’ face out of corner of his eye. He’s probably a little conflicted. Spending time with Grantaire in theory is one thing after all, but when faced with him in reality? A man can only value a citizenship so much, after all. Grantaire chews on his lip and scrambles for something to say.

“Listen,” he says, stealing an open glance at Enjolras. “Listen. I’m sure we can make this work. You’re smart. I have a Bachelor’s in producing nonsense on demand. Literally, Art History is a _joke.”_

“How comforting.” Enjolras says, apparently on rote. Grantaire watches how one particular golden curl brushes against the point Enjolras’ jaw as he drinks, wondering if he would be able to hear what Enjolras is thinking if he were that close.

“Awh, and they say you don’t have a sense of humour, boss.”

“That’s rule two.”

“What?”

“You can’t call me that anymore,” Enjolras murmurs. “That’s rule two.”

“What, _boss_?” Grantaire asks. Enjolras gives him a flat, unimpressed look from over rim of his espresso cup. Grantaire dimly notes the irrational pleasure; he is well aware how fucked up the corner of his brain that controls reward is. One note of ire from Enjolras and his dopamine pathways light up like a fucking bonfire. “Uh, okay.”

“We should seriously talk about that stuff,” Enjolras says, stirring. The caffeine must be working. “Rules and boundaries. And plans.”

“Yeah, probably, I guess,” Grantaire says, a little distantly, marvelling at Enjolras’ continuing resolve to go on with this. Then again, everything he does, he does with intention. Enjolras has never said something he didn’t mean in the entire course of his life.

“When are you free?” Enjolras pushes on bravely.

“Uhm,” Grantaire says, trying to remember any details about his life which exists outside of this room. “I guess … after class today? My only plans are avoiding my advisor, so.”

“Hm,” Enjolras pulls his dressing gown closer around himself. “Want to meet at the _Musain_?”

“Okay.” Grantaire hops down from the counter. This is an opportunity to leave, and he grabs it like it’s a lifeline. He spots his bag propped up by a plug socket next to the wall and quickly heads over and slings it over one shoulder. “I’ll see you then, I guess?”

He pulls the door open.

“Grantaire.” Enjolras is still in the kitchenette. He looks up and meets Grantaire’s eyes. “You know this counts, right? As doing something that accidentally benefits someone else?”

“Well, _fuck,_ ” Grantaire says with feeling, “why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”

He shuts the door behind him, and, against all reason, smiles.

He’s halfway down the road when he remembers something from last summer. An accident in such a long line of accidents that he’d almost forgotten about it. 

Grantaire has to stop and lean his forehead against a lamppost when he realises what, exactly, had been so familiar about Enjolras’ pyjama shirt.

He remembers Enjolras, standing in a sun-soaked living room, glowing in the light. In retrospect, it really had been all his own fault. Enjolras couldn’t go unexpectedly show up in a guy’s apartment looking like that and _not_ expect people to get a little distracted.

Grantaire remembers holding the offending palette in one hand and a paintbrush that was dripping acrylics onto the linoleum in the other. As Enjolras’ expression had morphed from shock to outrage to resignation and his very pretty eyebrows creased, Grantaire hadn’t been sure whether to burst out laughing or fall to his knees and beg forgiveness. He very distinctly recalls thinking, _he had it coming for wearing such a tight white t-shirt in this household._

“He _kept_ that? He _sleeps_ in it?! _”_ Grantaire tells the lamppost in anguish. “Oh, God. Oh, _God_ , what have I agreed to?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This chapter would not exist without the galaxy brain genius of Andy (@bitchycentauri on tumblr), thank you so much <3 
> 
> You can come say hi on tumblr (I'm @cobaltkicks) & updates should be every 3 weeks!


	3. iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Our fake relationship,” Grantaire corrects, because in his head the words our and relationship mix about as well as gasoline and a lit match.

_4 TH APRIL 2018, PARIS_

“I thought of someone else, you know,” Grantaire says when they’re in the queue for coffee that afternoon, to try and distract himself from the conversation he’s sure is going to follow. Enjolras, in the process of counting out his change, does not reply.

“Pontmercy. Uh, _café au lait, sil-vous plait_ ,” Grantaire says to the barista. He turns back to Enjolras. “You said everyone else in the Amis was taken or a woman, but you left out poor old Pontmercy.”

Caffeine is a bad idea. Grantaire is feeling about as calm as Orestes, if Orestes had pulled an all-nighter and been hopped up on amphetamines on top of being hounded by the Furies. But Grantaire is, he reflects, nothing if not a stack of bad ideas in a paint-stained hoody.

“Marius doesn’t date men,” Enjolras says after he’s ordered. 

He was listening after all. This is the second times in two days that Grantaire has been twitching with nerves over a conversation with Enjolras in the Musain. This whole marriage scheme, he reflects, is going to just wreck his blood pressure.

“Ehh,” Grantaire says, “ _doesn’t_ isn’t _wouldn’t_.”

Enjolras gives him a flat look that probably means s _top speculating about our friends’ sexualities_ and empties all the change from his wallet into the tip jar. Grantaire fixes his gaze on the menu board and hides his sweaty palms in his hoody pockets.

“What? Courf and Marius were fully inseparable for like, six weeks. And Courf has been known to make married men _with three kids_ question themselves.” Enjolras gives him a concessionary grimace; apparently, he recalls that particular 2-week period of last July all too well. “All I’m saying is, you can’t blame a guy for believing what his eyes tell him.

“But then again, I guess Marius is spoken for. Honestly, I’m a little offended you didn’t ask _I_ had any prior romantic entanglements,” Grantaire continues as they sit down.

“Marius is spoken for?” Enjolras asks, not needing to point out that Grantaire is the last person ever to come close to what most people would call romance – saving, perhaps, Jehan, but that was by design.

“Mostly.”

“Hmn,” says Enjolras, and turns his cup around on its’ saucer twice. Grantaire gets the impression Enjolras is not really thinking about Marius Pontmercy’s blossoming romance. “You don’t, do you?”

“What?”

“Have any prior—” Enjolras waves one red-nailed hand. “Right? Courf said you didn’t. I wouldn’t have asked you to do this otherwise.”

“Oh! Uhm, no,” Grantaire says, too surprised to lie. Enjolras’s shoulders drop to what looks like a much healthier position; Grantaire hadn’t even noticed them starting to creep up. “But then, what does Courfeyrac know? Well, – “

“ _Everything_ ,” they say at the same time, and Grantaire chuckles. Enjolras presses his lips together over a smile.

“Yeah, everything,” Grantaire says. “It’s scary, right?”

“Mhmm,” Enjolras nods. He turns his cup around on its’ saucer again, and it occurs to Grantaire to look a little closer at Enjolras’ expression. Enjolras is guarded, as usual, but not in his usual quietly self-possessed way, and not even in cautious way he usually has around Grantaire, or children, or once, when asked to give it a few drops of phosphates, Bahorel’s peace lily.

It’s another expression Grantaire cannot label.

Hmn.

“What about you?” Grantaire asks. “Leaving a trail of broken hearts across France? You know, I passed the _parti socialiste_ student chapter in the library and I _was_ wondering why there were so many red eyes…”

He breaks off, chuckling at Enjolras’ expression, so withering that he forgets to look tense.

“I’m serious, not a dry face in the house,” Grantaire grins. “Awh, no, don’t worry, I know you wouldn’t look twice at any of those clowns.”

 _Maybe I should join_ , Grantaire thinks _, then I’d be in good company_. Enjolras opens his mouth, presumably to contradict him, but hesitates.

“See, even you can’t defend them.”

“Grantaire.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

There a pause, then Grantaire says “Right,” at the same time as Enjolras says, “Uhm, so.”

Grantaire’s stomach churns like he’s spent the whole morning mixing spirits. He looks down to where his palms are burning from clutching his coffee cup too tight.

Enjolras follows his gaze. Grantaire’s fingers aren’t very pretty. The ungainly bones of his joints stand out against his skin like round-capped white mushrooms on a forest floor. His tendons are taut steel wires. Grantaire can feel them starting to itch. “Is it okay with you if I sketch? I’ll still be listening; it just helps me focus.”

“Sure,” says Enjolras, not looking away from Grantaire’s hands as he flips open his bag and pulls out a sketchbook. He flips it open to a clean page and looks expectantly at Enjolras.

“So, I’m assuming you already have an eighteen-step plan with a cross-referenced spreadsheet?” Grantaire asks. This is how any planning happens in Grantaire’s home, because Joly, quote, craves “the order that tiny boxes bring me.”

“Well, I had some thoughts,” Enjolras says, “but I didn’t want to make any plans without talking to you. I don’t want to do anything you’re not okay with, and I value your input.”

There’s really no way to reply to that last part, so Grantaire just spins his mechanical pencil over his knuckles and says, “Don’t you worry, it’s pretty hard to make me uncomfortable. I’m sure your ideas are fine.”

“The thing is,” Enjolras says, still not drinking his coffee. He’s moved on to methodically scooping the foam off it with a latte spoon. “I’m worried that we don’t really have a lot of time.”

Grantaire begins to sketch. “Oh?”

“Yeah, so,” Enjolras says, “we’ll hear about the appeal in August. And if it doesn’t go through, I have until October to – to leave.”

Grantaire’s stomach swoops.

“And how likely is that?” Grantaire asks. He glances up from his sketchbook.

Enjolras gives him a look. Grantaire grimaces.

“So, we have to get hitched by October?” Grantaire says, and _holy shit_ , his voice is almost level “That’s heaps of time.”

Heaps of time that Grantaire desperately needs to pull himself together, so he doesn’t end up throwing himself into the river – on purpose, this time.

“What? That’s nothing,” Enjolras says, “that’s a _five-month_ engagement.”

Grantaire does the maths and tries not to break the lead of his pencil against the paper when he realises that Enjolras is counting from _this month_.

“Eh, that’s plenty,” Grantaire says, “I know a couple who went from meeting to being married in nine weeks.” Enjolras raises a disbelieving eyebrow.

“Well, they’re lesbians,” Grantaire clarifies. The disbelief vanishes from Enjolras’ expression. “Anyway, you were saying?”

“Right, uhm,” Enjolras swallows another spoonful of latte foam. “If we get, uhm, _engaged_ right after I hear about the visa, it might look a bit…”

“Suspect?” God, they really were _scheming_ , weren’t they?

“Exactly,” Enjolras sighs. He has on a pinched expression that, in normal circumstances, Grantaire would find very fun. But in normal circumstances, it would be directed at Grantaire himself, and not the convoluted and morally compromised rings they were running around immigration law. “So maybe we should get engaged a bit earlier? And then we can just pretend to split up if it doesn’t turn out to be necessary to go through with the whole thing.”

Grantaire might be imagining the slightly hopeful note in Enjolras’ voice as he says that.

“Whatever you think is best,” Grantaire says. “Just tell me what to do.”

“I think I said this already,” Enjolras starts, and Grantaire is immediately on guard at the sincere turn in his voice. “I’m really grateful you heard us out the other day. Me and ‘Ferre and Courf have been talking about this for so long I think I forgot how overwhelming it would be for someone to hear about for the first time.”

“How long _were_ you planning for?” The only safe question to ask.

“A few weeks. After I got the letter about my visa.”

Oh.

“Wait, was that - ” Grantaire looks up. Enjolras has his head tilted in Grantaire’s direction. “Was that what happened, at the Musain, the other night?”

Enjolras nods, lips pressed together. Grantaire’s eyes catch on them, still painfully dry. Maybe Grantaire would have put that together if he wasn’t always thinking about how dry Enjolras’ lips are. Does Grantaire need to buy him chapstick? Is that something boyfriends can do?

He looks hastily back at his drawing. He puts down his pencil and pulls a biro from his pocket.

“Thanks for talking to me that night,” Enjolras says, and Grantaire cannot stand another instant of that tone.

“Bup-bup-bup,” Grantaire holds up a finger. “Rule one.”

“What? I can’t even thank you for other things?” Enjolras demands.

“Nope!” Grantaire says. 

“But – “

“It’s too late,” Grantaire tells him, “you already agreed.”

“I did?” Enjolras asks. “Sorry, I’m a bit out of it in the mornings sometimes.”

Grantaire files that piece of information away for future consideration.

“Well, I’m holding you to your word.”

“But – how -- ” Enjolras protests, “how am I going to be able to tell you I’m grateful for things, then?”

“Just _think_ it really hard at me,” Grantaire says, deadpan.

Enjolras gives him a look. Grantaire puts his biro between his lips and grins at him. He presses his fingers to both temples.

“Like now, you’re thinking, _how am I going to stand two years of this?”_ Grantaire says and takes the pen from his mouth. “You can’t tell me I’m wrong.”

“Actually, I was thinking that your pen is leaking.”

“Oh shit,” Grantaire says, and swipes at his lower lip with his forefinger. Enjolras’ eyes follow. It comes away blue. “Look at me. Real boyfriend material.”

Grantaire is making progress towards thinking about this entire situation without feeling faint one irreverent joke at a time. He thinks he is being extremely brave in persevering.

“So, Courfeyrac suggested we could maybe … backdate our relationship? Then it’ll seem less like it came out of nowhere.”

“Our fake relationship,” Grantaire corrects, because in his head the words _our_ and _relationship_ mix about as well as gasoline and a lit match.

“But, sure,” Grantaire tries to sound flippant, “how far back do you want to go?”

“Maybe we could say that we met doing Amis stuff, and we just weren’t being particularly public until now.”

This, at least, would be one effortless lie. Grantaire had been pretending he met Enjolras through the Amis for years.

“Like, things just started getting serious?”

“Right,” Enjolras says, and finally, finally takes a drink of his coffee. It must be awfully lukewarm by now. He does not appear to mind.

“Okay,” Grantaire runs his biro over his teeth, and Enjolras visibly flinches. Grantaire pulls the pen away from his teeth. He knows it’s an awful habit, much like all of Grantaire’s other habits, but _still_.

He tries to think. All Grantaire’s relationships have started as hook-ups and were technically not so much relationships as much as a series of hook-ups with the same person strung together with substance abuse and Grantaire’s morning-after pancakes. He doubts that’s how Enjolras operates.

“We could say we … kissed on New Year’s Eve at Courfeyrac’s _fête du nouvel an_ and realised we liked each other for real and went out for drinks a few days after? That’s the kind of ridiculous stuff people eat up with a spoon.”

He expects Enjolras to object, but he tilts his head to the side. “That’s not bad.”

“It does require a bit of complicity, thought,” Grantaire says, “we’re telling the Amis about this, right?”

“I think we have to,” Enjolras says, “we can’t exactly lie to them, but also, it’s asking them to … be complicit, like you said, in something illegal.”

Finally, Grantaire puzzles out the strange new expression. It’s guilt.

“We’ve done way more illegal things for less.”

“Not for less,” Enjolras frowns.

“Fine, if it’ll make you feel better, we can go person to person and _personally_ ask them to do a little playacting to stick it to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. I guarantee every single one of them is going to say an emphatic _yes_.”

The guilt is momentarily replaced by Enjolras’ _be serious_ face.

“Yes, I know that,” Enjolras says, and is that perhaps a note of frustration creeping in amongst the constrained politeness he’s kept up this entire time? “But it’s still asking them live dishonestly for us. For me.”

“Trust me, b – Enjolras, there are ways to avoid being truthful that aren’t lying. Most of us pretended to be heterosexuals our whole lives.”

“And what about _you_?”

“Me?”

“You realise I’m asking you to lie to your family and colleagues and all your friends who aren’t in the Amis?” Enjolras says, making eye contact with Grantaire. It feels very weighty.

“Yes, I realise that,” Grantaire says tightly.

“Okay, right – and you’re fine with that?”

“Well, we are going to sign that marriage deed for real, aren’t we? No lie there. You’re nothing except for your actions.”

“But you’ll have to pretend to be in love.”

Well, that one is easy. Nothing to it.

“I care about you. I care what happens to you. I’ll just –” Grantaire waves a hand, “ – exaggerate a bit. Look, if you’re okay with it, I’m okay with it.”

“I’m okay with it,” Enjolras says, and something in his face makes Grantaire reach across the table and awkwardly pat his hand.

“Don’t worry. You have my full and willing consent.” Grantaire gives Enjolras his most impish grin, which is _very._

“Speaking of,” Enjolras says.

“Oh no,” says Grantaire. He stops grinning.

“What?”

“The _what are your rules_ conversation. That’s what’s happening, right?”

“Yes,” Enjolras says, entirely unforgiving. “What are they?”

“Nothing.”

“Grantaire. Everyone has boundaries.”

“I don’t,” Grantaire lies.

Enjolras looks at him flatly. Grantaire slumps forward until his head rests on the table.

“You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“I know,” Grantaire says to the waxed wood.

Enjolras is silent a moment. “Think about how awkward this conversation will be if we wait to have it after one us of accidentally crosses the other person’s boundaries without even knowing and – and there’ll be _tears_ and _apologies_ –”

“Oh, god, stop, I’ll do it!” Grantaire says, sitting up. He points a finger in Enjolras’ considering face. “I forget you’re a _rhetoricist_ sometimes.”

“I learned from the best.”

“Ugh, _thanks,_ Combeferre,” Grantaire says. “Okay, fine. Hit me. Do you have a list, or something? Is this where the spreadsheet comes in?”

“There isn’t a spreadsheet.”

“A crossword puzzle, then? Honestly, I’ll take anything.” 

“Okay, how about this; I’ll say something, you say if it’s okay, and then you say something, and we’ll take turns like that.”

“Hng,” Grantaire says to the waxed wood. “That’ll do, I _guess_.” 

He crosses his arms on the table and rests his left cheek on his folded wrists. Seen sideways, Enjolras is easier to look at. His deep brown eyes have become tensed narrow ribbons; an unlit alleyway between the Parisian houses, the river at night. 

“How about holding hands?”

“That’s okay,” Grantaire says, and, okay, maybe he will survive this conversation. “Uhm, what about endearments?”

“Sure. Hugging?”

 _No,_ says Grantaire’s brain. “Yes,” says Grantaire’s mouth, then, “I can make coffee for you?” before he even has time to interrogate where _that_ comes from.

Enjolras blinks. “Sure, than – uh, that would be nice. Uh, can I put my arm around you?”

“Nice save, and yep, fine.” Grantaire says. “What about …” Grantaire casts around for something that isn’t escalating physical contact. “I text you memes I think you’d like?”

“Wha – I mean, yes, but you can just do that anyway,” Enjolras says.

“Oh,” Grantaire says. “Well. You say that. You may come to regret it.”

“Okay. I have to check. Kissing?”

They’re Parisians, so he almost certainly is not asking permission to kiss Grantaire on the cheek. Grantaire revises his earlier statement about making it through this conversation without significant bleeding of the brain.

“No,” Grantaire says, mind and voice blessedly on the same side this time. “I mean, we’d have to once, right? At the, uhm, wedding? If it happens.”

“Oh,” it’s Enjolras’ turn to say. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Good grief, who wouldn’t kiss their spouse at their own wedding?” Grantaire says. “Good thing I’m here, otherwise you’d never sell this.”

This is not entirely true. Grantaire suspects that he and Enjolras are even par on romantic sensibilities (that is, none whatsoever), even if they are the opposite endpoints on the drunken and debased debauchery scale. Grantaire does a significant upper hand, however, in the Spanish telenovelas that are background noise in the Joly-Bossuet-Musichetta-Grantaire household.

“Any other rules?” Enjolras asks.

“Uhm,” says Grantaire, “you have to come with me to any of the Art Department mixers Mme. Houcheloup is going to force me to attend.”

“Of course,” Enjolras says.

“And you?”

Enjolras inclines his head. “No, I don’t think so. Unless I can make a rule countering Rule One?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Ah, it was worth a shot,” Enjolras says. “What about dates? I know you’ve got a lot going on, can you make some time maybe once a week? Just so we can take some pictures?”

“I’m sure I can squeeze you.” Grantaire says.

“Then,” Enjolras says, “it’s a plan?”

“It’s a plan,” Grantaire says. “Any final thoughts?”

“No,” Enjolras says. “I mean, fuck the government, et cetera.”

“Et cetera,” Grantaire echoes, and that is how the strangest month of his life begins.

The speed at which his life realigns itself to fit with this duplicitous plan is slightly alarming. Grantaire walks into the Musain three days later to a welcoming committee of eight separate jokes about married life, and spends that evening giving assurances about his mental wellbeing to Joly-Bossuet-Musichetta and fending questions about the sudden resurfacing of his moral compass. He goes to class. He performs a few more acrobatic feats of scheduling to avoid running into Mme. Houcheloup. Bahorel knocks him about in the boxing ring on a Thursday evening. And once a week, he and Enjolras sit across from one another in a café somewhere, and Grantaire watches Enjolras furiously typing over the top of his laptop and pretends he doesn’t.

_29_ _th APRIL 2018, PARIS_

Miraculously, the subject of parents doesn’t come up until their fourth fake date. They’re in some offensively clean, slick café that isn’t the Musain, pretending to work and instead sharing facts that one could sensibly expect their significant other to know. Grantaire has just about managed to stop hysterically laughing every time he thinks about it, which is just as well, because he has been frightening small children on the metro.

“I cannot lie drunk. I know everyone over-shares, but I am _physically incapable._ ” Having divulged a complete list of his hobbies _and_ his entire arrest record, Grantaire is running low and is getting dangerously close to the border between ‘quirky facts’ and ‘irredeemable character flaws’. His saving grace is that he can expound on any given subject available to mind-numbing length. “I mean, I can barely lie sober, which is going to make telling my parents about you really difficult, given that whenever I enter hearing distance of either of them, I instantly want to replace most of my bodily fluids with vodka.”

Instead of his trademark flatline eyebrows, Enjolras’s makes a brief “tell me about it” expression, and nonchalantly reaches for his coffee cup. Which, _what._ Grantaire makes the tactical decision to execute a smooth topic diversion. “What about you?”

“Telling my parents?” Enjolras pauses to swallow a mouthful of coffee and Grantaire wonders if his topic change was that smooth after all. “I’ve probably hit upon the only way to become _more_ estranged with them.”

“Marrying a man?”

“A _white_ man,” Enjolras says, and much to Grantaire’s shock and delight, smiles. “A white, _atheist_ man.”

“Priorities,” Grantaire mutters. “Ooh, if you really want to drive the point home, I’m pretty sure I make a convincing crack addict.”

Enjolras takes another excessively long sip from his coffee cup.

“Or, y’know,” Grantaire says, trying to sound like he was just struck by genius rather than backtracking. “I could pretend to work in an abortion clinic. ‘ _Yeah, I cut babies out of women for a living. I enjoy it.’_ ”

Enjolras snorts into his cup, and Grantaire looks down at his essay draft in relief. Note to self, he thinks, _likes any kind of rebellion, prude about mind-altering substances, uses coffee as a social coping mechanism??_

Being in proximity to Enjolras is strange; terrifying and unsettling and addictive all at once. Grantaire has had to expand his collection of Enjolras’ expressions into a whole filing cabinet. Mere facial expressions have become but a subfolder amongst other categories - how often he paints his nails (weekly), distinctive tones of anger (eight and counting), the amount of help he needs navigating his smartphone (he asked Grantaire how to turn on _Bluetooth_ last week, for crying out loud).

“Not that we even need to pretend,” Grantaire continues, “I’m already enough of a disappointment to parents world-around. An artist. And not even the kind that makes infographics for _Le Monde_ , just the kind that writes wordy papers about the Florentine masters, as if that didn’t go out of fashion three hundred years ago.”

“But you’ll be a doctor,” Enjolras says, turning back to his laptop. He’s learned surprisingly quickly how to screen out most of Grantaire’s depreciation.

“Maybe.” if he can ever work up the courage to face Mme. Houcheloup. “Here, give me your phone.”

Enjolras hands it over, eyes still fixed on his laptop screen. The hand not holding his phone even continues to type. It’s really quite wonderful. Grantaire opens Enjolras’ Instagram account. He’s fairly certain its’ content is curated by every member of the Amis _except_ for Enjolras.

Grantaire opens the camera, and lines up a shot of their coffee cups. He even manages to get the corner of Enjolras’ well-loved laptop with the _‘you only gave us rights because we gave you riots’_ sticker. It has a little Keith Haring-style figure on it. Grantaire is secretly quite fond of the little guy’s janky arms and legs, the way it’s been stuck on to look like it’s throwing a brick at the Asus logo.

 _study OR date? YOU decide,_ he writes for the caption, and uploads it. He flicks back to Enjolras’ page, and scrolls through a – a –

“Hey, what’s the collective noun for social media posts?” Grantaire asks.

“Trouble,” Enjolras says without looking up.

“You’re a grandpa,” Grantaire says, and turns back to the feed. Every post looks the same. Coffee cups, hands. He’s about to comment on this, when he catches the time. “Oh, shit. I have to go. I’m late for flat dinner tonight. I think Musichetta is making aubergine curry.”

He jumps up, and starts jamming things into his backpack, then realises he’s buried his keys at the bottom of the bag and pulls them all out again. Lighter, a handful of watercolour pencils, a beanie that Feuilly knitted. Enjolras watches each item scatter onto the table.

“When are you free next week?” Enjolras asks.

Grantaire shrugs, which is a good approximation of how much he knows the answer to that question.

“Same time? We could do this again? _What_ ,” Enjolras says to Grantaire’s raised eyebrow.

“This is the only thing we do,” Grantaire says. “And it shows.” He passes Enjolras back his phone.

“It’s efficient,” Enjolras protests.

“Efficient? Oh, Enjolras, you’re being forced by whatever cruel God sits above to spend time with me and you don’t even want to make it _fun_?”

“Pray tell, what do you suggest, then?” Enjolras asks.

It’s such a Courfeyrac-ism that Grantaire has to smile. He runs one of the watercolour pencils over his teeth, because he knows it makes Enjolras’ eyes narrow. Then,

“What are you doing next Wednesday evening?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for your patience! I've had a bit on an upheaval in my life, so chapter updates may be a little slow, but they will happen. Thank you for reading! <3


	4. iv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His dark skin is lit up like a June sunset by the tubes of pink LEDs running under their feet, and Grantaire realises that he has wildly miscalculated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: depiction and discussion of long-term illness, exam/thesis stress, mentions of previous substance abuse.

_2 nd MAY 2018, PARIS _

They meet in a red-bricked alley that evening. Grantaire has already been there for 15 minutes, smoking and internally congratulating himself. Formulating this plan had even given him an incredible excuse not to do his readings for class, so really, it was a win all around. He wraps up the mental victory lap with a last nod to his own genius when Enjolras appears, in a coat over his shirt and ridiculous slim jeans, despite it being _May_ and also only 6pm.

Enjolras kisses the air above Grantaire’s cheeks after only the slightest moment of hesitation. “Hi.”

“Hey.” Grantaire grinds his cigarette out under his shoe. “Good day?”

Enjolras gives him a flat look. “It’s a closed book exam.”

“Gross,” says Grantaire with the entirely theoretical sympathy of someone who hasn’t sat an exam since high school.

“And they want us to memorise all these theorists, who – who haven’t been relevant since 1989, at _least.”_

This mild scorn is what Grantaire has come to recognise as casual conversation for Enjolras, and he’s grateful for the offering. He laughs. “Poor you. Polluting your brain.”

Enjolras shakes his head. “Memorising all the – the lyrics to Cabaret would be a better use of my brain space.”

“Probably better political theory, too.”

Enjolras doesn’t laugh, exactly, it’s more of a humorous inhalation of breath. Grantaire’s stomach still flops over. There’s a moment or two of silence whilst Grantaire furiously tries to decide whether they know one another well enough yet to continue to banter.

Enjolras saves him from having to make this choice by pointing at the open double doors, and the steps going down into grease-infused darkness. “Shall we -?”

“Yeah, sure.”

The queue moves forward, and they descend into the basement venue. This is the first part of Grantaire’s genius: the lights are low, sparse and every colour except for white. In the pink-toned semi-darkness, he doesn’t have to look directly at Enjolras.

“Have you done this before?” Grantaire asks Enjolras, who shakes his head.

They collect their clubs and balls, and Grantaire holds onto the scorecard, tucking the tiny pencil behind his ear. This is the other half of his incredible planning; if he’s focussed on knocking the glow-in-the-dark golf ball around he won’t have to _talk_.

Enjolras is looking around, taking in the artfully manufactured grime, the distressed metal and stained carpet. Everything is gently bathed in neon. They follow the arrows flashing in the floor down the corridor and arrive at the first hole.

It’s a sight. As they’re standing and taking in the disturbingly true-to-life model of Jabba the Hutt, Enjolras turns to Grantaire with a triumphant little look on his face, and says “oh, I get it. It’s a movie theme.”

His dark skin is lit up like a June sunset by the tubes of pink LEDs running under their feet, and Grantaire realises that he has _wildly_ miscalculated.

“You know,” Grantaire says, around his suddenly dry throat, “we don’t have to play the whole course – you, you know, we can just take some pictures, you can go back to studying –”

“But you paid already,” Enjolras says.

“I know, but –,” Grantaire rifles around for an excuse, pointedly looking at Jabba’s voluptuous wrinkles, and not the pink-purple glow around the edges of Enjolras’ curls. “But – you know, you’re busy,” he finishes weakly.

“So are you,” says Enjolras, “your thesis…”

“Oh, no,” Grantaire says immediately. How Enjolras even knows about that, given how little Grantaire himself manages to think about it, is a question for the ages. “Well, I mean, yeah, but that’s… not.”

“Okay,” says Enjolras with a clear tone of confusion. Grantaire caves and glances at him, and yep, he’s not getting any less transcendently beautiful. “You don’t want to play?”

“No, I want to,” Grantaire says, stupidly.

“You’re just being considerate?” Enjolras asks carefully, and okay, it is kind of uncharacteristic of Grantaire, but _still_.

“Hey, it’s not a lunar eclipse,” Grantaire says. “It _happens_.”

He flaps his free hand at his golf club.

“Shall we…try the first hole?” he suggests.

Enjolras nods, looking relieved. Grantaire lets his ball drop onto the worn felt. There are two sizeable humps in the course, and he gives it a sharp _thwack_ to get it over them. The ball takes the first one at great velocity and does not stop. It bounces off Jabba’s face and lands not 3 inches away from where he’d started.

“Well,” Grantaire sighs, “fuck.”

Enjolras lines up his shot and gives a gentle tap. The ball trundles on its way, somehow making it over the first hurdle, and Grantaire has 3 different rejoinders about size and power lined up on his tongue when the ball plonks itself neatly into the hole.

Grantaire’s mouth drops open.

Enjolras turns to him and says, “Did you get that?”

“You’ve done this before,” Grantaire accuses.

“No!”

“I – _no_?”

“Did you get it?”

“Did I get it?” Grantaire repeats under his breath, pulling the pencil out from behind his ear and furiously scrawling a ‘1’ in Enjolras’ column. “Did I fucking get it?”

They ask the couple behind them, who are presumably on a real, actual date, to take their picture. Enjolras is standing on the little platform where the car from _Grease_ is display and uses the height advantage to put his arm around Grantaire at very last second. He tenses up so immediately that the picture doe not come out well, but there’s no way he’s asking for a do-over. They thank the nice couple and move on. 

Their final score is 12 to Enjolras – the water round with the Pirates of the Caribbean sirens gave him pause – and 25 to Grantaire. He’s still grumbling when they exit into the cooling evening.

“I pick the most clichéd date activity I could find,” he says around his cigarette, “and you’re a fucking prodigy at it? What is that?”

He goes to slide the packet away inside his jacket, and gets it halfway into the pocket, before whipping it out and offering one to Enjolras. Frankly, with the number of social faux pas he’s made this evening, it’s a waste of energy to even begin to feel embarrassed.

Enjolras pulls out a cigarette.

“That was fun.”

“I’ll bet it was,” Grantaire says darkly. “What, are you going to be perfect at folding napkins, too? Setting out a picnic basket?”

He lights his cigarette, then looks at Enjolras awkwardly rummaging through his coat pocket with one hand, and thinks, _what the hell_ , and leans across and lights Enjolras’ cigarette as well.

They begin the amble homewards, trailing smoke in the greying evening air. Grantaire idly flicks through his Instagram feed.

“Not to give myself too much credit,” he says, devotedly not staring at Enjolras’ lips around the cigarette that Grantaire lit for him. He spins dramatically to avoid a parking bollard as a result, “but I think that went alright.”

“Hmn,” says Enjolras, thinking his own private Enjolras thoughts. How intolerable Grantaire is. Why won’t Grantaire make eye contact with him. More realistically, how much he’s going to have to cram for his exam in two weeks, the inescapable descent of the West into fascism, which flowers to send Bossuet for his birthday, impending ecological disaster, how to scrape together a life that includes Grantaire.

He could be thinking of any of these things, but what he says is, “Thank you for organising this. Let me pick the next one.”

“The next one?”

“I was thinking about it –”

Grantaire blows out his mouthful of smoke to mutter, “Uh-oh.”

Enjolras gives him a look that says, _very funny,_ but continues uninterrupted. “- and I think you had the right idea –”

“That’s so close to, ‘you were right, Grantaire’,” Grantaire says wistfully.

“- and we should do some more things like this -”

“Like playing crazy golf? I’m sure you do.”

“– but I don’t want you to have to do all the work, _so_ , you should let me pick the next one.”

Grantaire, floating in the sublime feeling of being familiar enough to be talked over, can only say, “sure, Enjolras. Whatever you like.”

They reach the metro station where Enjolras gets on, then, and amble to a natural stop. Enjolras turns to him. “So, next Wednesday, then?”

“Next Wednesday, then.”

They part ways on the streets of Paris, smoking and kissing the air goodbye.

_9 th MAY 2018, PARIS_

When Grantaire lets himself into his apartment block, he finds Joly sitting on the second-bottom step, leaning his forehead on top of his walking stick, clasped between his hands.

“Have your wings deserted you, my friend?”

Joly looks up and smiles. “No, no. I’m just scoping out the real estate around here for when I fail my exams and have to become a shady backstreet mob doctor.”

The words are slow and stretched, being pulled out of his mouth like molten glass being wrapped around a glassblower’s pipe.

Grantaire snorts. “Hey, crashing out of university and turning to a vagabond life of crime is _my_ thing. Stay in your goddamn lane.”

“I do apologise.”

“Room for one more on that prime real estate?”

Joly shuffles over. Grantaire takes a seat. The step is truly grimy. Joly wouldn’t be resting here unless it was dire. Grantaire racks his brain for something useful to do that isn’t _worry,_ and as usual, comes up short. What does Joly always say about this? Something glucose something blood sugar levels, wasn’t it?

“Do you want some juice?”

Even in his state of exhaustion, Joly’s head swivels sharply to look at him. It’s still resting on his hands. “ _You_ have _juice_?”

“Well, – hey, what’s that tone for? I could have juice!”

“Do you?”

“No, I was gonna get some from the convenience store,” Grantaire says. “But I could have had juice, you don’t know.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve never even seen you drink water, R. Only coffee.”

“Maybe I’m renouncing my caffeine habits and trying to live a healthier life.”

Joly snickers. “You wouldn’t know a nutritional label if it insulted you and lay seductively on your bed.”

“I don’t know why you think that’s a fantasy I have.” Grantaire stands, patting himself down for his wallet. “What flavour juice do you want, gremlin?”

Joly considers. “Mango,” he says thoughtfully.

Leaving his bag on the floor, Grantaire crosses the road into the little _tabac_ opposite. Inside, he puts down three cartons of mango juice on the counter and smiles at Céline behind the till.

“Tobacco, R?” asks Céline. She’s the owner’s niece, which how she gets away with dark eyeshadow and a truly frightening number of facial piercings. Grantaire, who has always been rather weak in the face of forceful personalities, has been maintaining a light flirtation with her any time he comes in.

Suddenly, Enjolras’ voice floats through his mind. _You shouldn’t lead someone on if you don’t mean it._

“Non, merci,” he says, dialling back his smile from ‘ask for my number’ to just ‘friendly’. Looking away, his eyes slide onto a stack of cat food tins on the nearest shelf.

“One minute,” he says to Céline, and sticks his head out of the shop door.

“Joly!” he yells across the street. He can see Joly in their foyer through the dusty security glass windows. Joly waves. “Do we need food for Manchego?”

Joly gives a slow thumbs up. Grantaire pays for them along with the juice, and heads back across the street.

“Nice,” Joly says, taking a juice box from Grantaire. Grantaire stabs the straw into his own. “Thanks, R.”

Grantaire waves a hand. They sip juice in companionable silence for a moment.

“Christ,” Grantaire pulls his away from his mouth, eyeing the illustration of a fun mango man on the packet. “ _Flavoured_. Mango _flavoured_. It tastes like the long-dead ghost of a mango.”

Joly hums. “The juice brushed past a mango in a dark street one evening, years ago.”

“The juice met a mango’s eyes across a crowded room at a house party.”

“It’s always wondered whether the mango felt that fleeting feeling as well,” Joly says.

“It’s got a post on Missed Connections,” Grantaire says. “Me: a juice box that led a flavour-less life.” Joly grins. “You: a mango, beautiful, round, succulent –” Joly snorts around a mouthful of juice at _succulent_ , ending up coughing into his sleeve, “- leaning against the wall whilst that trap cover of Tom’s Diner played for the third time.”

Joly adds, “Did you feel our connection? Call me.” The colour’s coming back to him; mango-flavoured or not, the juice is doing the trick.

“I may be full of juice,” Grantaire says, “but I should be full of --,” his voice cracks, “- of _love_.”

“Okay stop –,” Joly holds up a finger, “stop making me laugh, or I’m never gonna finish this.”

“ _Pardon, pardon_ ,” Grantaire says, and they lapse into silence again. He worries with the idea of asking Joly if anything happened like it’s a putty eraser. Joly finishes first, shaking the empty carton.

“Where are you coming back from this late?”

“Oh,” Grantaire picks at the dried glue on the side of his carton. “Enjolras took me to the _Musée Rodin_ for a – “

“A fake date?”

“Yup.” Grantaire pops the _p_.

“Did you take photos holding hands with all the statues?” Joly asks.

“No, he barely looked at any, I don’t why we went.” Enjolras had only looked at the ones that Grantaire had pointed out and squinted at all the elements that Grantaire had hysterically rambled about with such intensity that Rodin’s skeleton must be feeling self-conscious.

“Awh,” Joly says. “That’s a shame.”

“Actually, it wasn’t too bad.” Grantaire turns over his juice carton to inspect the other side. “He kept asking me questions about my stupid dissertation, and I was like, I’m dropping hints that I didn’t want to talk about it – “

_“I don’t want to talk about it_ ,” Joly chimes in, because he’s a champ.

“But he did not pick up on it, and we ended up talking about it, and I got an idea for the bit in the second chapter I was stuck on, so.” Grantaire shrugs a shoulder. “It wasn’t a complete waste. Hey, is this the nutritional label?”

Joly looks over his shoulder. “Yes, that’s the nutritional label.”

Grantaire squints at it. “Is seventeen grams of sugar a lot?”

Joly tips back his head and laughs. His voice is back to normal now, only slurring the occasional _s._ Grantaire remembers he’s being a good friend.

“What about you?” he asks. “Why are you back so late?”

“Labs overran,” Joly says, “and I still had to go to the library and study for exams next week. And the elevator is broken.”

“It would honestly be more surprising if the elevator was not broken.”

Joly sighs. “Apparently, it was meant to be fixed today and I kind of pinned my hopes on it working by the time I got back. But it wasn’t, and now -” Joly gestures to the step they’re inhabiting.

“Did they – did they break it _more_?” 

Joly’s hands flex around his cane, and he slowly gets to his feet. He shifts methodically from foot to foot, then rolls his shoulders and looks around. “Okay. I think I can go up now.”

They go up in increments, Grantaire carrying Joly’s backpack for him, discussing what to do about the elevator as they go.

“We could get it a Get Well Soon balloon,” Joly suggests, pausing after taking five steps in a row.

“Maybe it’s been so long it’s forgotten how to work.”

“It’s lost its lust for life.”

“We need to give it an inspiring pep talk.”

“What if we cut together a montage of all the good times,” Grantaire suggests, trying not to hover around Joly, “to remind it how it used to be. Taking people up and down. Fixing their makeup in the mirror. The buttons getting stuck.”

“That time when we moved in when we spent fifteen straight minutes sending up all our houseplants.”

“Ah, those were the days,” Grantaire says. They’re on the first-floor landing.

“Bossuet sent an email,” Joly says. “He even quoted the Paris building code and used the --” he gives Grantaire a significant look, “-- lawyer words.”

“How brave,” Grantaire says. “He must really love you.”

“He really loves being able to buy ten kilos of rice at a time and not having to drag it up the stairs,” Joly says.

“It might be time to escalate,” Grantaire says.

“What do you mean?”

“Could you bat your eyelashes and get Bossuet to use his big lawyer words on the phone?”

“I do have nice eyelashes,” Joly says. “But not that nice. He won’t.”

“He might.”

Joly gives Grantaire the same look that Grantaire gets when he suggests that his 3-day old coffee mug isn’t _that_ unclean.

“I got an extra mango juice. We’ll bribe him.”

“Grantaire, _mon ami_ ,” Joly says, “your persuasive talents are great indeed. I shall be telling the story of the Green Tea Debacle at your wedding –"

Grantaire accepts this praise with a humble bow.

“ – in fact, me and Bossuet are thinking of putting it to music, you know, with his ukulele but that’s a conversation for another – yes, but even you cannot convince Bossuet to call our landlord and pretend to be our legal representation with only a single mango juice.”

“Mango- _flavoured_ , Joly,” Grantaire says, jiggling the keys in the lock. “And perhaps, if it was only the juice. But you’re forgetting, I also have your eyelashes.”

He throws open the door.

“Oh, Bossuet! Friend of my heart! Come to our rescue!” Grantaire calls, striding inside. He turns and winks at Joly, who rolls his eyes magnificently and wobbles inside after Grantaire.

_11 th MAY 2018, PARIS_

Grantaire runs out of luck on Friday.

He’s tiptoeing down the faculty corridor in the art history department, attempting to creep from his seminar room to the lift without being spotted. He passes Mme. Houcheloup’s open door, and --

“Grantaire. Come in.”

There’s no arguing with that tone, so he goes in.

He slinks into one of the plastic chairs by her desk, not meeting her eyes, and casting a glance around the office he’s managed to stay out of for five straight weeks. Mme. Houcheloup finishes clacking out a line on her email, then pauses, her bright red acrylic nails hovering over the keyboard.

Without looking at him, she says, “Is ‘regards’ more or less passive aggressive than no signature?”

“More,” Grantaire replies. “And sign off with your full title.”

She resumes clacking and taps the touchpad with puncturing force. She scrutinises her inbox for moments longer, presumably no other purpose than to make Grantaire squirm.

She swivels sharply in her chair towards him.

He swallows.

“Long time, no see, young man.”

“Y – e – p,” Grantaire stretches the word out into three syllables.

“What’s happening?”

“Uhm, I,” Grantaire starts, then relents to telling the truth, because of all the self-preservation instincts the absinthe had stripped from him, lying had been the first to go, “I got stuck. On Chapter 2. And I spiralled a bit.”

Spiralled was strong. Grantaire had run into a problem that couldn’t be solved in fifteen minutes, and his brain had the staying power of a cobweb in gale, so he’d abandoned it for a week. Then two, then panicked about falling behind, then forcibly repressed his panic by continuing to ignore his thesis, and then it had turned into a month and a half.

Mme. Houcheloup doesn’t comment on this. Instead, she says, “what problem?”

Relief courses through Grantaire, almost stronger than that fateful Monday when Enjolras had proposed to him instead of throwing him out of _Les Amis_. He describes the entire logical knot to Mme. Houcheloup in a single breath, and of course, she has him frantically scribbling down four different routes in Sharpie on the back of his hand.

“And if you get stuck again, what are you going to do?” she says, not sparing his feelings even a little.

“Not... this,” Grantaire mumbles.

She raises an eyebrow behind her lacquered wing-tip glasses.

“Make an appointment to see you instead,” he says, more clearly. Mme. Houcheloup’s blistering presence seems to burn all the shame out of Grantaire in a way that the sympathetic sighing of his secondary school teachers had never quite managed.

“Hmn,” she says, and for a second Grantaire fears she’s going to force him to come back in a week, or two. “That is what I would like to see.”

“I – yes,” Grantaire says, still computing this display of trust for a second. But, of course, it makes sense, she’s too busy to chase him. He squints at Sharpie notes spilling up his arm. Mme. Houcheloup, who he’s never seen wearing a shade of lipstick that didn’t match her fingernails, watches him with a sort of distant curiosity. “Did you say look at Caron, nineteen eighty -”

“I have a copy of it – ah – I think -” she stands up and pulls a file off her overloaded shelves, flipping through it to find a faded journal, which she hands to Grantaire.

It’s _Perspective, la revue de l'INHA_ _,_ 1986 copy, with faded annotations on the yellowing pages. He glances up, briefly terrified by her seeming lack of aging.

“I’ll be wanting that back, Msr. Grantaire,” she says, and turns back to her inbox.

As he’s making his way out of the visual arts building, he gets a text from Courfeyrac.

_Still ok to call??? :ok_hand:_

Grantaire texts back:

_Yea_

_Im walkin home tho_

_Got ambsuehd by my teacher_

_Ambushed lol_

_Runnin late_

He had sort of half-consciously been turned towards the _Musain_ , he realises. He pivots himself in the opposite direction instead, towards home, and starts walking. _Les Amis_ hadn’t had meetings since the start of May, which was the start of final year exams for undergraduates and, Grantaire’s brain never failed to tack on, therefore the start of the end of the year.

Courfeyrac had been insisting on calling Grantaire since around the same time, and Grantaire could only pretend not to have read his messages for so long. He had let _numerous_ quality jokes in the group chat slide for the sake of pretending not to be online – eventually he had to speak up about Manchego, and then, well, he had to reply to Courf.

His phone rings, and he picks up.

“I almost walked into the _Musain_ just now,” Grantaire says after they’ve greeted each other, then wonders if that’s too pathetic to admit.

Courfeyrac sighs. “I’m pretty sure I had a dream about Musichetta’s blueberry lattes last night.”

“Getting withdrawal?”

“Like leaving my lover to go to war.”

Grantaire laughs at him. Courfeyrac is very generous with his sympathy. Grantaire had once overheard him spend a full fifteen minutes berating Nintendo to Gavroche, to cheer him up after a bad run on his games console, despite knowing not a single thing about Pokémon and reaching for more and more outlandish examples to continue his diatribe.

“How many exams have you had now?”

“Two. Four to go.”

“Oof. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Courfeyrac sighs. “I want to see daylight again. I want to see my _boyfriend_ again.”

“Combeferre lives with you,” Grantaire says.

“Oh, Combeferre’s body exists my apartment, sure,” Courfeyrac says. “But _my boyfriend_ has been replaced with a manic spirit who only stops studying to do pilates and to ask me to quiz him about medical ethics, Grantaire, it’s _terrifying_.”

“God, fuck,” Grantaire snickers. “I don’t miss it.”

“Honestly, I have no idea how Enjolras is managing to play crazy golf with you, as well as his internship, as well as exams...”

“By not sleeping, Courf.”

“Anyway,” Courfeyrac says. Grantaire can hear a soft _flumpf_ sound at the end of the line; he pictures Courfeyrac collapsing onto his bed. “How are you, R?”

Grantaire starts crossing the quad. Sunlight is streaming. Friends are clustered on the dry grass, bent over books and phones and sweating cups of iced coffee. Grantaire swallows.

“I’m just excellent, Courfeyrac,” he says. “Truly, just, dazzlingly wonderful.”

“Hmn,” says Courfeyrac.

It’s not exactly a front, but sometimes Courfeyrac exaggerates his flighty playboy nature to put people more at ease with how terrifyingly empathetic he is, which is terrifyingly empathetic in and of itself.

“Hmn yourself,” Grantaire says, stalling. Just because he’s aware of Courfeyrac’s social engineering doesn’t mean he’s resistant to it.

“What?” Courfeyrac says. “I feel just like, a tiny bit responsible.”

“For arranging my marriage?”

“For whatever delicate emotional state might arise from me arranging your marriage,” Courfeyrac says.

“I have a sponsor, thanks, Courf,” Grantaire says. “Also, screw you, I’m not delicate.”

“Yes, yes, you’re very macho,” Courfeyrac says. “And do you mean to tell me that you’ve told your sponsor about your pretend relationship?”

Grantaire pauses.

“Because you could, you know?”

“Did you call me just to ask me about my feelings?”

“No, I want to hear about how you’re doing.”

“That’s code for you wanting to hear about my feelings.”

“Well, if I can talk you into telling me about your feelings, I wouldn’t say no.”

Grantaire sighs. “I’ll take the out, Courf. But, really. It’s not a problem.”

“Okay,” Courfeyrac says. His voice sounds like he’s considering. “R, you know I’m not just Enjolras’ friend, right? I’m your friend too.”

“Yeah?” Grantaire lies.

“So, if you do want to talk about it – the marriage I arranged for you, how upsettingly beautiful Enjolras is –” Grantaire makes an affronted noise; Courfeyrac ignores it and continues, “– whatever, you know.”

“I’m seriously okay,” Grantaire says, instead of what he’s thinking, which is that Courfeyrac is only asking out of guilt.

“Alright,” Courfeyrac says, “message received. Tell me about something else instead.”

“How the hell,” Grantaire says, “is Enjolras so good at crazy golf?”

_6 th JUNE 2018, PARIS_

By the time they go to the planetarium, Grantaire realises he’s being one-upped.

The deeper into exam season _Les Amis_ sank, the busier Grantaire became. He’s added about two and a half thousand words and seven sources to his dissertation, is cooking dinner for his flatmates four times a week and has had to wrangle Manchego into the vets office three times, and the weeks slipped by without paying much attention to his and Enjolras’ turn-taking at picking dates.

After the gallery, Grantaire had taken Enjolras to a pop-up exhibition on graffiti, and covertly snapped of a delightfully trite picture of him in front of a scrawled _Respect Existence or Expect Resistance._ The week after that, Enjolras had an exam on a Wednesday, but the next week he and Grantaire went on a tour of the catacombs and Grantaire insisted it wasn’t _that_ disrespectful to pose next to the wall of skulls. Next, Grantaire made Enjolras suffer through the pretentions of _Cin_ _éma Studio 28_ , but somehow managed a photo of Enjolras actually _smiling_ at a stupid pun Grantaire made.

Now standing with Enjolras’ coat in one hand, and two tickets for a show about asteroids in the other, Grantaire watches Enjolras peering over heads of a couple of eight-year olds at a display about the layers of the sun, and viciously thinks, _you bastard._

Enjolras drifts over to the next display, nodding thoughtfully at a screen displaying the trajectory of Haley’s comet, unaware of the scowl Grantaire is directing at the back of his pretty, blond head.

Grantaire rolls his shoulders and joins Enjolras.

“Having a good time?”

“Yeah.”

“Learning a lot?”

Enjolras makes a non-committal hum. Grantaire narrows his eyes. Enjolras puts his hands in his pockets – _he’s_ not draped in tickets and coats - and drifts over to the next display, about the Rosetta spacecraft.

“Huh,” Enjolras repeats, watching the little screen showing the snow-blitzed footage from the surface of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Grantaire’s fairly certain he watched the landing when it happened, on a ratty couch in someone’s student flat, projected onto the living room wall above the empty cocktail pitchers. “Is this an actual…”

“Comet, yeah,” Grantaire says.

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know, Enjolras,” Grantaire says, amicably. “You know, if I didn’t know you better, I’d say that you’re not so wild about spacecraft on comets.”

He’s very aware of Enjolras pointedly not looking at him. Enjolras bites the inside of his cheek, then his expression smooths out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh huh,” Grantaire says.

“Isn’t our show starting soon?” Enjolras says, running a hand through his curls. He’s got a scrunchie around his wrist, why doesn’t he just put his hair up? Grantaire double-checks their tickets, shifting their coats in his arms to free his hands.

“Oh, would you look at that, _yes_ ,” Grantaire says. “Our show about asteroids, a topic you are famously fascinated by, _is_ starting in eight minutes.”

This time, Enjolras doesn’t manage to stop the corners of his mouth turning upwards, just for a second. “Uh,” he says, a moment too late. “I think we should get in the line, then.”

Grantaire follows his purposeful striding, shaking his head. All this time, Grantaire had been picking disgustingly cliché date activities whilst Enjolras, Enjolras had been tailoring them to their specific fake relationship?

_Oh,_ Grantaire thinks grimly, _it is_ on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Thank you so much to my wonderful beta readers, Andy (@bitchycentauri on tumblr) and L! Your support and encouragement mean the world to me!
> 
> 2020 beat me up in a Tesco's carpark and stole my spare change. Thank you so much to everyone for your patience waiting for updates, your lovely comments and kudos have been like a warm cup of tea by the fireplace in the torrential rainstorm of the world. 
> 
> In this story, Joly has CFS/ME. I know CFS/ME Awareness Day was May 12th but in my own defense, I decided to write this fic in May. For more information, check out: https://www.cdc.gov/me-cfs/index.html
> 
> (Also, yes I have seen Braindead, yes that is a direct reference to the planetairum scene, no I will not be taking questions at this time). 
> 
> @cobaltkicks on tumblr, come say hi.


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